Plan Z

      The wave of company has come and gone-- we had a wonderful time! Lobster dinner, a bonfire, and brilliant night skies provided the perfect Maine experience for our southerners. Best of all, the sap is flowing and our SIL was able to make fresh syrup for our breakfast waffles! These are all surprise joys I never expected to have in life.

     I've switched it up to a bit of a new round of projects, after closing out most of my Sew Sampler boxes from last year. One thing that does remain is the Pressed Flower quilt. In each box, you get an extra block pattern for a yearly quilt-- I usually ignore them, but the current one was a good one, so I even bought a kit. There are only two blocks left and surprise, surprise-- I kept up. I though it would be fun to work on the finishing kit, and by the time the last block shows up, I can just pop it in to place!

    The blocks are set with HUGE flip 'n stitch corners-- a cream, then a gingham one. The resulting seams in the center gingham block really drive me nuts! I guess the Fat Quarter Shop decided to avoid on point construction at all costs.

All that really needed to happen was this?

    I decided to up the game and go with on point construction and also use Y seams for a perfect finish. After a bit of math, the first one came out okay-ish-- unfortunately, I have just barely enough fabric to do it this way. So no mistakes allowed! I think it looks really pretty-- I'm even fussy cutting the gingham center to make sure it is straight and centered. 

     If I had thought about this sooner, I would have picked the pretty large red floral for the block centers, but once this BOM debuted, the fabric sold out everywhere. I love a gingham as much as anyone, but it's a pattern that really doesn't make for nice quilt blocks. Here's the start of my first row:

     I'm going to make this a priority this week-- since there is no tolerance for error, I better make sure I don't forget what I was doing-- LOL!

     My Kona star came along, right though Plans A, B, C, and I'd say we're on Z by now. First of all, it did take me an entire charm pack to make just eighty-four 2-1/2" HSTs! It really shows you how much waste you are creating when you flip and trim all those corners. Then, I tried to make a star somewhat like the star of the month-- it's an 8x8 layout of HSTs, but everything I tried looked unorganized and crazy. (A Freudian tribute to the creator?) Then I tried a second pattern that was more like a Carpenter's Star. No dice. Should I have been less random with my pairs of fabrics? Should I have saved some plain 5x5 squares for backgrounds? It's all moot now-- I'm not buying another charm pack. 

   I Googled up "HST stars"-- and found this online. So I think I can make four 4x4 stars that would look okay, then stitch those together. 

     This could work if I just come up with an arrangement of darks and lights. There are so many colors though!

     I'm not feeling too confident about this-- but oh, all those lectures I gave friends about trying new things as an artist are really haunting me! I was so disappointed for them when they picked the easy solution. Karma, karma! I'll soldier on another week and see what I can come up with.

     Moonbeams, which is the Fat Quarter Shop Make-a-Wish project this year, came in a beautiful box. It reminded me that I also purchased the accompanying cross stitch which also came in a beautiful box. These are not free stitch-a-longs-- let's remember to make the requested donation, everyone! I believe it is $20 each for the quilt blocks and cross stitch. Release One happened on March 1st. I was actually able to finish the cross stitch border over the course of the week-- this makes me so happy, as I'd imagined this project was going to be another shelf sitter. The first two quilt blocks are the doves, so pretty!-- I'm making a point to get them done this month, before Release Two in April.

     I did finish hand stitching Block 11 of Prairie Meadow-- now it's the lengthy process of prepping the next one! 

     I finally signed up for a Sit and Sew and a local quilt shop-- it's time to get out a bit. They graciously kitted up Robin Picken's Posies tablerunner for just the cost of the fabric. I'm going to do my cutting at home and see if I can git 'er done on one day from 10:30am-3:00pm mid-month. Looking forward to this.

     So that's my progress for the week-- I simply have too many projects ongoing right now, so whatever progress I do have, always seems to be insignificant. Company has gone, and the house is too quiet, as well! Maybe a little nip of maple syrup will get things going this Monday morning. 

Have a great week!

xox

Carol