Planting and Piecing

This morning I'm pretty well put back together after my four days away. Everything that needs watering has been watered. Everything that needs feeding has been fed. Everything that needs snuggling has been snuggled. I haven't done any embroidery since before I left, and I am Jonesing for it. That's next on my agenda after I write this post.

Yesterday, I had just a couple of hours for sewing after getting home from the grocery store, and so it didn't seem as if I accomplished much. Nevertheless, it's good to be sewing things together. Here's what I accomplished yesterday. When I started, it looked like this:

Nothing is sewn together at this point. Almost immediately, I learned to appreciate the hash marks I'd made during class, although it was a tedious process to add them. (It would have been easier if I'd had more different colors of colored pencils.)

When I started to sew together the two right-most strips of the red chair, I realized I had the second strip upside down, which meant the two strips of fabric were also reversed. I had to remake that one. Then, I was ready to sew them all together. Having those strips sewn together allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief. (Green chair, I'm looking at you.)

After that, I decided to start working from the upper left corner and across. You might notice that I've added some fabrics for the sand, and in particular, I love that swirly one at the extreme left.

The most difficult part of yesterday's piecing episode was putting together the arm of the chair. It's only about halfway pieced now. 

While drawing out our patterns, one of the challenges was trying to decide how much detail to add. I've circled this little detail in the image below. You can see that it is the support for the chair back, and it really does need to be there if the chair is to look right. To separate it out as the support, the little triangle of sand needs to be added as well.

The little yellow piece that I've indicated in the image below is tiny...the freezer paper template is no larger than, say, 1/2-inch on its longest side. Because of that it was hard to get the orientation correct, and I found myself lining it up with its two companion pieces using the drawing again and again. During class, Ann suggested first fusing the little pieces of fabric to some fusible interfacing (such as Pellon) to make them a little more sturdy and prevent fraying. I didn't do that, but I probably will as I go along.

The next challenge was that I had the piecing order mixed up at the end. I'm sorry for the poor image below. I was holding the camera too close, and so I've written in the piecing order in red. Look closely at it, and you'll see that pieces 6-7 have to go on after piece 8. (Think about paper-piecing order.) That didn't stop me from trying to do it the way I have them numbered however, and my seam ripper got into the act here.

This is one of the more complicated sections of the entire quilt, and so I'm hoping I'll get more accomplished today. I have more time, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. (Although those could be famous last words.) Here's where I left it yesterday.

The sections inside the pink boundary (below) are sewn together now, although the sections are not sewn to one another. I'll piece the sections to one another once I have them all finished. The sections are designated up to the letter "R," and so there is still much to do.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was thinking of switching out the section of "sand" fabric below the red chair.

My friend Debbie (who happens to know a LOT about color) suggested leaving it since it suggests a shadow under the red chair. I thought it might be too pink, but I'm just guessing on stuff at this point. Debbie also suggested trying to make a shadow below the green chair. I think one thing I could do would be to cut that striped yellow fabric at an angle similar to the angle of the fabric below the pink chair. (I hope that makes sense.) It gives me something to think about.

Also this morning I started reading Ruth McDowell's Design Workshop.

It's fairly dense, and so I'll read it a little at a time. After taking the class, it's making more sense, and I can put the two sources together and hopefully clear my muddled brain.

Before I can do any sewing, however, the tomatoes are begging me to repot them from their red solo cups into some larger pots. Also, I need to sprinkle some granular fertilizer around the herb garden. Possibly also, I have enough chive blossoms to get the chive blossom vinegar started. None of that will take very long, and so I expect to have all afternoon to sew.