A Better Way

It was a beautiful morning to get out for a walk yesterday. I needed to empty the compost pail, and I needed to feed the birds. My little cat and I took advantage of the sunshine to make a few laps around the property.

We noticed some daffodils already poking their heads up. It seems awfully early to me.

With the sunshine, the temps had risen to around 40°F., but there were still patches of snow around.

There was frost first thing in the morning, but it had melted into zillions of droplets by the time we got outside.

There was raking light coming through the Douglas fir next to Mike's shop.

We moved into our house in June, 2002. There was minimal landscaping at the time. It looked as if the previous owner had hurriedly planted a few trees and shrubs here and there just to make the place look a little better before putting it on the market. (We were told later by our neighbors that a relationship break-up had precipitated the sale.) In any case, the tree in the image below was left behind still in its five gallon pot. I think we waited another year before deciding on a place to plant it. You can see now that it towers overhead. It's one of my favorite trees, called a Weeping Fir.

At that point, Smitty and I headed back inside and I went to work on those damnable flowers for the Quiltmaker's Garden. I still needed to applique the center over the large flower I'd made the day before. I'll need to top-stitch this, but I'll do all the flower centers at the time time.

Then I was ready to give a try to the smaller flowers. As I said in yesterday's post, I had in mind to try a freezer paper template to bring the two paper-pieced seams together. I made templates for the first and last piece in the circle

Then I held it up to the light for placement and glued it in place.

Before continuing, I cut the center piece out since there was too much bulk if it was left in. Then I continued piecing around all the petals until I got to piece #10. 

For that, I made a second template and cut it to size and tried to match it up to the seam allowance for piece #1.

I was able to complete the flower, but it was still a painus in the anus. I added the center applique, and one small flower was done. Nine more to go. Oy.

I took a break there and checked my email. My friend, Karen, had written to suggest cutting the paper-piecing foundation in half by trying to find two seams that were more or less on the same line.

That turned out to be an excellent suggestion. You can see that the seam line for pieces #3 and #9 are fairly well straight across. It's close enough that no one will ever see the difference. So, I cut the template in half there and then paper pieced it in two sections.

When the two sections were finished, they looked like this.

And then all I needed to do was to match up the edges and sew them together.

I added the center applique and laid them side by side. Can you tell which is which?

Well...that just about made my whole day, so thank you for that excellent suggestion, Karen. The remaining eight flowers are all white with green petals, but they'll go together so much easier. I think I'll actually get this finished without needing to slit my own throat.

After that, I decided to do something a little more fun, and so I made Block #2 for the Solstice Challenge. Pat Sloan calls this block the Day and Night Star. I've also heard it called a Split Star. As I said in an earlier post, I'm trying to make these blocks represent something seasonal, or something that happened during the week. We've had plenty of snow and cold weather, and so this block reflects our recent snowfall.

After that, I thought I might do some more flowers, but someone else had other ideas. He'd taken up residence on my sewing chair and didn't seem inclined to move.

Yes, you're done sewing for the day.

Okay...well, the boss has spoken. It was time to call it a day.

This morning I have a doctor's appointment and then I'm getting my monthly pedicure (a week late this time around). After that a few errands before coming home. I'm not sure I'll have any time for sewing, but I'm hoping to get a few more flowers finished.