Join us for our second annual Block of the Month / Quilt Block Swap! We call it Common Thread and you'll see why in just a minute!
How It Works:
You choose the main “featured” fabric for your quilt and divide it up between all 12 participants (~1.5 yards total). Each month, you’ll use one person’s “featured” fabric to create a 12.5" block for them using your own fabric stash to fill in the rest of the block. At the end of the year, you’ll have (12) 12.5" blocks that feature your chosen fabric to compile into a unique--and surprise!--quilt top. We’ve built some quilting & finishing time into the schedule so you can have a finished, collaborative quilt by the end of 2026!
If you'd like, you'll be able to offer some guidance and inspiration to the other participants regarding your featured fabric. For example, you could share that you'd like to stick with a certain color family or color palette, if you'd prefer all solids/prints/mix of both, etc. But ultimately, the design of the blocks are up to the participants creating them! Since you can choose to offer ideas & inspo or not, you'll have varying levels of guidance from the other participants each month regarding their featured fabric. Click through the images to see examples of mood boards and sample inspo from 2025.
Each quarter, we'll have optional studio time to get together and work on your block of the month. While our time together won't be an instructional class with step-by-step guidance (since everyone is making something different!), we would be happy to help with colors, design, block construction--even techniques like Foundation Paper Piecing, etc. Plus, you'll get to meet and sew with others in this year's cohort and maybe get a sneak peek of others making blocks for you!
Skill Level: This program is meant for all quilters. To ensure good, solid results for all participants, you should be able to construct a well-made quilt block according to the prescribed dimensions.
Out-of-Towners: If you're not local to Philadelphia, you're welcome to participate from afar! You'll just be responsible for all postage costs.
See more FAQs here!
Hosted by: Melissa & Chrysti
New This Year: We're ready to run more than one cohort if we get more than 12 folks wanting to participate. If the first cohort fills up, you'll see an option for "Cohort #2" get added to this listing so that 12 more seats become available! (We'll have to come up with better cohort names if we end up with more than one...). Maximum of 12 participants per cohort.
If it's Sold Out, please email us at hello@cutandsewphl.com to get on the waitlist. If we have enough people on the waitlist, we may be able to open a second cohort!