Lessons Learned and Final Thoughts

Yep, a little breeze, but it was a bit wavy on its own too. 35" x 53"

I finished this on Tuesday? Wednesday? Blursday? Regardless, I handed it over Wednesday afternoon so it could get to Houston and be entered in the Silent Auction being held during the Competition Weekend for Region 10 of Sweet Adelines. I had no desire to be there in person, but I was there in fabric.

New Tricks

Normally when creating string quilts, I let the corners happen organically. When a triangle fills a corner, it's sewn on and that section is complete.

With this yellow and M&M top (what should I call this, anyway?), however, I wanted the corners to be fairly similar in size, which meant 

*gasp*

planning!

For the first few blocks I used my usual ham-handed method of laying the triangle face up in the corner, carefully turning it face down along the long edge, then scooching the triangle a 1/2" back toward the corner again before sewing it down and hoping for the best. There had to be a quicker way, one with less trial and error.

Bonnie Hunter's Essential Triangle Tool to the rescue! I wasn't very scientific about this: I looked through the corners I had completed so far and found a couple I was happiest with, flipped the corner piece back so I could see the seam, then lined up the ETT with the hypotenuse so I could figure out what line would give me that result again (I really wish now I had taken pictures of what I just tried to describe.) In this project, the scant 1-1/4" spot (using the red lines) fit the bill. Square up the ruler to the raw foundation corner

and the bottom edge is where the triangle hypotenuse goes (these measurements assume the standard 1/4" seam and all dog-ears intact. Again I say: this project.)

 

A Yellow Runs Through It

Remember this?

I decided to bring this project to the fore as something to work on after my "fresh" eyes were used up every morning. 

Morning quilting has been down the center of the vine (branching into the leaves and stems), in the sepals of the flower buds, and within the center of the open flowers, followed by several days of burying threads.

Hello Walls

That's how I feel this weekend as I gradually insert myself back into the life I up and left back in August 2020. With the post-surgery corrected-vision limitations going on, resulting in making FMQ unenjoyable at the moment, I started poking around and rediscovering the PHDs and WIPs lurking about my studio.

Some didn't take much poking, especially the pile of 35 Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks that have been perched on any available surface on the cutting table, looming like Snoopy-the-Vulture. I'll get to that pile in a later post.

I pulled out an alluring plastic shoebox, sitting atop the shoebox holding all the rest of the strips for future N1C scrappy TATW tops. I obviously had an idea in mind. How far had that idea developed?

Well, there are two 10" squares of lightweight and, in some spots, threadbare cotton. What else?

Stringin' along

I cannot open my blog one more day to the sight of TFI. This has been sitting in Drafts; time to finish my thought and get it published!

I've been playing with more "neutrals", still getting comfortable with Bonnie Hunter's definition of the term. I also wanted to try a new-to-me technique of making string blocks: using a fabric foundation square instead of telephone book pages. The nice thing about string blocks for donation quilts: there's no wrong answer!