My Process
Assembly is English Paper Piecing. Think of the coffins in columns, with the far-left as column 1. Column 1 should have all coffins assembled head-up (the top of one coffin is sewn to the bottom of the one above it). Colum 2 should have all coffins head-down. Repeat, with even-numbered columns right side up and odd columns upside down.
I have put together a kit that contains a bunch of fabric that will fit around the paper pieces and have divided those little pieces into color groups just for ease on every 4th sewing day.
Day 1: Sew 9 coffins
Day 2: Sew 9 coffins and sew them to Day 1
Day 3: Sew 9 coffins
Day 4: Sew 9 coffins and sew them to day 3 > Sew days 1&2 to days 3&4 > Sew to the Bigger Working Piece > Sew to the Body (as applicable) > Plan the next 4 days of coffins and document them via pictures for reference
So what does this mean?
Sew X coffins = wrap fabric around paper, tack it in place, sew coffins together into a 3x3 block
Sew them to Day X = Sew the 3x3 block to the one previous, either next to or below
Sew days X to Y = Sew your 3x6 blocks together
The Bigger Working Piece = A piece that does not fit onto the Body yet but that is larger than Days 1-4
The Body = The quilt itself
FOR EXAMPLE ... Today is my second Day 4. My "Body" is currently a 6x6 patch of coffins. My working piece is a 3x6 from days 1-2. I also have a 3x3 from yesterday and a set of 9 coffins to sew today. I will sew the 9 coffins, sew them to the 3x3 to get a new 3x6, sew the two 3x6 pieces together to get a new 6x6, and I will sew the new 6x6 to the first 6x6 to make the Body bigger. I will then move on to Planning.
Planning is another beast. I go through the pieces of fabric that I have cut and I lay them out next to the rest of the quilt to ensure that I'm not putting a bunch of the same pieces together or too near each other. I then stack them into batches of 9 starting in the upper left and going down. As of the mistake on 10/19, I am putting a note on each stack that either says "Up" or "Down" so that I know how to orient the upper-left of the daily coffins. Every other 3x3 block is "upside down" when going across, and I goofed that and had to re-plan this week's Day 4 coffins.
Measurements and Template
How-to on the template: https://www.tiktok.com/@garbage_arts/video/7242431804471397674
Basically it's a vertical rectangle 2.75"x1". 1" down from the top, measure out .25" on either side and make a mark. Connect the corners to those marks to make a coffin shape. I have 1/4" graph paper and used that to make a sheet of templates that I can copy as needed. On graph paper, the coffin looks like this:
I have found it helpful when folding and tacking the fabric around the templates to draw a very visible line (blue gel pen works great) from one "elbow" to the other so that I know where the points need to be.
According to the measurements from Sylvia's Quilt Depot, I would need the following number of coffins for each size quilt. For length I am dividing the quilt length by the length of the coffins (2.75 inches). That gets us the "Down" column. For the width I am adding the width at the meeting point of the firs and second columns (so 1 inch plus 1.5 inches to get 2.5 inches) and then dividing the width of the quilt by that, then multiplying by 2. This gets us the "Across" column. The "Coffins Needed" column is Down times Across. All numbers (except Approx. Hours) are rounded up to the next whole number.
Approx. Hours was calculated thusly: It took all of Star Wars Ep1: The Phantom Menace to make and stitch together 9 coffins. SW E1: TPM is about 136 minutes long. (9/136)x60 gets me to 3.97 coffins per hour, which I rounded up to 4. Coffins Needed/4 rounded up or down as necessary gets us the Approx. Hours column.
I have found that 63 coffins, if taking the center coffins out as soon as they are available, will last me for 12 days. I can run off 18 coffins to a sheet of 8.5"x11" paper, so 7 sheets of paper gets me 24 days of coffins. This math may change as my edges get longer, but as of this edit (11/1/23) I have a sinus infection and cannot math.
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| Quilt Size Guidelines from Sylvia's Quilt Depot |
