I have 4 sets of these completed. There are only 3 more seams but my goodness they take a long time to put together. The most challenging part of this project is putting each piece together. It requires a ton of pinning and even then it doesn’t line up right. On my final set I remembered one instructor recommended basting paper pieces projects first to check how it lines up. i hope to try this on my next seam to see if it will work better and allow me some wiggle room to smooch and mosh things to line up right.
just so you can see by what I mean by all those pins. I do love how it’s coming together
Just a reminder how this is going to be. It keeps me motivated to push forward while I grumble over all the pins.
Here’s project #2 I’m working on. Just a sneak peak while I figure out some design choices. I finished the workshop project and I could just end it here. While I look at it and ponder it didn’t feel finished and I continue to work on it.
I finished all the wedges and now I have to put them together. But I’m setting this aside while I work on my disappearing 9 patch. I think 3 quilts in progress – at the piecing stage at least – is the most I can do. I can rotate through them, not get bored, and make progress weekly as long as I have quilty time to work on them. Because of my busy schedule I haven’t gone to yoga in two weeks and I’ve had more quilty time than normal. I’ve been having a blast and really need to figure out how to keep the quilty time on my schedule. and still go to yoga.
I need to place these on my design floor and figure out my layout. Then I can sew my top together. Once that is done, I need to make a decision on whether or not to add borders. I brought my blocks to the guild meeting to get my raffle tickets. We get 1 ticket per block. and one of my guild sisters loved how my main fabric (the one with the flowers) really did all the work in making the block. I agree with her. In fact I picked that fabric first and worked on getting the other fabric that worked with it. These all came from stash and I love that.
Provence is really close to being finished finished finished. I’m actually quilting the final border and I’ve got 3 sides left to quilt. It takes about 2 hours per side and I only have enough energy to do half a side at a time. If I would just focus on this it could be done in a week.
Disappearing 9 patch
I lost my center on this project. As a reminder, this was a guild sew a long hosted by a friend of mine. I used 100% stash. Now that the blocks are put together I don’t like the green and how it gets muddled with the main fabric. I wish I had used a yellow or something lighter instead of the green. My recommendation for next time is to do a practice block to see how it goes before cutting for all 12 blocks.
Arabesque
This was the September guild workshop. It’s paper piecing and I’m in a groove. I have 8 of those wedges complete and the other 8 in various stages of completion. In my head, I have Dora Carey’s instructions on how to put the wedges together and an interesting binding technique. I’m afraid if I put it away I won’t get back to it or if I do I won’t remember these instructions and will mess it all up. I want to just finish it. I also know exactly where I’m going to hang it.
Storm at Sea with Snails Trail – Wendy Mathson
For my guild’s October workshop and speaker, Wendy Mathson came and taught us this project. She has these cool rulers she calls Trimplates that make the making of these so easy! I got this little top done on one Sunday. The workshop itself was 6 hours and then I spent a few hours at home finishing it up. The hardest part in the making of this quilt was putting it all together and not losing any points. I pinned pinned pinned and sewed very slowly to get it all together. It’s not perfect especially that final seam but it’s not too bad and I enjoyed it a lot. I think I need to add some borders and this little practice project could be finished.
SFVQA workshop with Dora Carey of Orange Dot Quilts
I do spend some time quilting every week but my progress is slow and I do not want to keep showing pictures of fabric under my sewing machine. But I actually got some great pictures to share. A couple of weeks ago my guild hosted a workshop with Dora Carey of Orange Dot Quilts and we started Arabesque. My first of many starts coming up.
This is a paper piece project and I’ve done paper piecing before so I was familiar with the process. Her method is a little different than the methods I have done before but it’s not significantly different. The only thing I found difficult was the big strips of fabric and managing all the excess around the part needed. I also accidentally sewed paper from further down the strip on the back of the part I was sewing. Three times!!! Rather than rip I tore the paper off. And then taped the paper where I tore so I could still use it.
During the workshop we worked on a section at a time and we used a lot of fabric. The strips were as big as the widest part and as you move towards the end it gets much smaller. I was wasting a lot of fabric. At home, I work on multiple sections so I can group steps together. I also have two strips for each fabric. One strip is the widest part and the second strip is about half that. That way I can use the wide strip for the wide section and the narrower strip in the smaller parts. I feel like I’m using the fabric more efficiently.
The quilt has 16 pieces and I finished 2 in the workshop. I have 6 pieces that I haven’t started. That means I have 8 sections all in process. A handful look like the one pictured above where I’m almost done. I am about halfway done on a few more. And I’ve got a couple that I have just started.
