Whew, I’ve been doing a lot of 5 am starts at work this last week, and after a night out on Friday I wasn’t entirely sure which way was up on Saturday! Still, I took my gran and her friend out to lunch and potted 8 herbs to go on my window ledges, so it wasn’t an entirely unproductive day. I did 3 loads of washing too, aren’t you impressed by my adulting skills? ;o)
Anywho, I did get some sewing done, and I taught my last class for this round of beginner’s quilting on Monday evening, so all was not entirely lost.
Finishes This Week:
I’ll show all the finishes from my class on Friday, since they weren’t technically *my* finishes.
In Progress This Week:
So this week I learned patience, the zen art of MSW sky creation, and why stack and whack cutting can ultimately be a PITA. As I finished the building part of section 4, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to do what I did with section 3 and build up the sky to be level with sections 1 and 2, because on section 4 that seam line would actually pass through the middle of a larger square, so I decided to just make the whole sky section. Which led to the learnings above…
Here’s the last part of the buildings first BTW:
And now the sky. Originally I was going to use the 2 1/2″ Sizzix die to cut the smaller squares, but while that would have been great if I was cutting from scraps, when I decided the whole thing was going to be from Moda Grunge, that was coming from yardage, so it made more sense to do it the old fashioned way by cutting 2 1/2″ WOF strips and then sub-dividing them. Which is where the stack and whack came in. When I went to sew the first strip of these together, I discovered that sometimes the stack had slipped a wee bit, and in fact I was not joining perfect squares, resulting in a slightly longer and slightly wonky line. In the end I discovered that the only way I could get truly accurate piecing was to join the squares to each other in pairs and trim any whiskers of extra fabric, then build up from there. Which was tedious, and led to the patience, and ultimately zen approach. Bloody boring to put together though, and not entirely exciting to look at…
To Be Worked On This Week:
This weekend I’m getting together with my Brit Bee buddies down south for a memorial service for Terri, one of the original bees. There will maybe be some sewing and pattern writing on the train, but otherwise, with more 5am starts in my future, I’m not expecting a huge amount of sewing to get done.
Linking up with Lee and the gang:
I love the buildings in your latest section – please tell me that's a fussy cut piece of fabric and not a teeny tiny partial DWR in the square in a square block!
P.S. I only ever cut through two layers of fabric – I'd rather spend longer cutting and get it right (and so not risk wasting fabric) than save a bit of time…
Oh I love this!! Your buildings looks so cheery and I adore the sky! The grunge works amazingly. 5am does not exist in my world and you know I'm going to tell you not to work so hard!! Or at least not so much ๐ xx
Love this! The bright and cheery colours totally drew me to the project. I bet it will look fab once you've worked it all out.
Thank you :o) The fabrics are not my normal choice, but I felt drawn to them for some reason, and they're making a beautiful rainbow town
I am a color gal yet I really like the feeling I get from that simple sky rectangle. I really love checkerboards and your sky one has a lot of texture. They are great to quilt since you have a built in grid and need no markings!
Ugh, it's super frustrating when that happens when you're cutting layers. When I do that I take it as a sign I need to step away for a few minutes because I'm trying to rush through things too quickly.
That's a world full of joy!!
I'm sorry to hear about your friend. I'm glad she had you guys!!
I have to say that I've been in that same boat with the strip cutting, and now I bite the bullet and use my accu quilt to cut… blerg!! XX!
Burning the candle at both ends, anyone would think that you were young and carefree! Oh wait a minute you are ๐ Enjoy it while you can.
I like the idea of stack and whack but like you the reality is often slightly misaligned pieces, perhaps this should be a question for Dear Katy??
Your town is coming along beautifully! I've been known to cut multiple layers of fabric to "save time" – pffft.
Your quilt is looking beautiful, I am excited to start mine. I often cut in layers and I totally understand your pain with the slip in the fabrics.
I hope the memorial service goes as well as it can do for you all. Your msw is looking great, I love the cheeriness of it – no clouds in msw
Love that msw sky …
And add in helping jackie with the maths on her MSW too!! It's looking fab! (btw, I'm reading via bloglovin on an iPad, and the right hand side of your text is eaten off the post!)
Love your version of small world. I'm sure Terri is smiling with all of you as you celebrate her life. I don't think I've seen your medallion quilt.