7/8/16

Some Progress

Yesterday was the first day spent in my sewing room in several days. I'm determined to move the Quiltmaker's Garden along. It occurs to me that I won't just "finish" this quilt as much as I will have survived it. I'm working on Section 4 of 5 for now. Both Sections 4 and 5 are nothing but paper piecing. (Commence gnashing of teeth.) Section 4 includes the parts you see outlined in pink below.


There are more than 40 sections of varying sizes and orientations to be completed. Most are small. I'll do them a few at a time in order to avoid slitting my throat. 

For today, I started with the three top flower sections. Each one took about half an hour to complete.




Next, I'll start with one side of the flowers below the top flowers. There are seven of these. Those will need to wait, however. My patience was used up for the day. 


The other thing I wanted to accomplish was to make a quilt back for the Baby Birds baby quilt.


There was plenty of fabric left to piece together a back. I had plenty of length, but not enough width, and so I used two of the fabrics and sewed strips together. I had more help with this than you can possibly imagine.

Here, Mommy. (Sadie calls me Mommy.) I'll hold the fabric while you measure.


When I was finished, it looked like this. Nothing fancy. Try to ignore the black smudge created by my little cat. She was giving it the snuggle test.


Finally, I moved along with Lesson 5 of the free motion quilting sampler. Lesson 5 is McTavishing, and while I know about McTavishing, I've never actually tried it. This is my first practice piece. 


I'm told it is supposed to "convey motion" and that my piece does that. Still, I'd like to practice this a little more before committing it to my sampler.

So a pretty good day of sewing. This morning I'm walking with Sue. It rained yesterday afternoon, but we're promised decent weather for our walk today. As you know, Sue and I lead charmed lives where rain is concerned. Hopefully, our luck will hold for another day.

9 comments:

Pam said...

Anyone who can piece together all the little pieces of the little beach chair scene quilt as you did really can't be stopped by some trivial paper piecing. Your beach chairs are so complicated and use so many gorgeous fabrics that you had to keep track of and use to make sense of the scene.
I love this garden quilt you are making!

Quilting Babcia said...

Garden quilts, beach chairs, could full retirement be on the horizon LOL!
Sadie has really taken to her job as quilt helper extraordinaire.

Vroomans' Quilts said...

As already said - if you can piece those chairs, you can manage the PPflower sections.

gpc said...

You do such great work, and McTavish beautifully (says one who never heard of McTavishing before but knows good work when she sees it.) :)

Kate said...

Paper piecing is time consuming, but you do get some pretty nice results from it. Sadie seems to be a very good little helper. Hope you get your walk in. I just barely made it back from mine this morning before it started raining.

Wendy said...

So, let me get this straight -- you don't like paper piecing? :) It can be putzy, but I don't mind it once in awhile. Looks like Sadie has a creative side and will be a big help in the studio!

Dana Gaffney said...

Little Sadie's face has that "I'm purring" look, she obviously likes her new job. I love McTavishing but haven't done it properly yet, your's looks really good.

heartsease54 said...

I actually don't mind paper piecing, but find I don't do it very often either. Kudos to you on even starting this quilt. I saw it and loved the way it looked, but was just too fussy for me at that time and I got rid of the magazines so I wouldn't have a moment of insanity and try it anyway.

Auntiepatch said...

I miss Miss Maggie but little Sadie is such a cutie. And Smitty likes her. It's always nice when the kids get along!