Two Days, Two Blocks

It's a wet and wild morning here, my friends. In the past seven hours, we've received nearly two inches of rain. They're calling it "aerial flooding." Does it ever occur to you that the weather people are just making up these terms as they go along? Think about it. Recently we've seen "atmospheric rivers," and "bomb cyclones," and "polar vortexes." It puts the "sharknado" in a whole different light, doesn't it? Our internet was out when I woke up, but it's been restored now. Thank goodness. I don't think I can live without the internet. How will I play Wordle? Well. I rest my case. 

Since yesterday's post was my "Best of" post, I haven't updated you on my sewing escapades for two days. You might think I would have accomplished more in two days than I did, but there were other things taking up time during the day. For one thing, Christmas has left the building. I like putting out the Christmas stuff, but for me...when it's over, it's over, and I want it out. We've transitioned from Christmas to winter since last we spoke. On the dining room table, I've added the Icy Blues table runner.

That was a free pattern from All People Quilt.

On our breakfast bar, I added the quilt I call "Whose Woods are These."

That one was a free pattern from Patchalot Patterns.

Finally, and finished just a couple of months ago, a Scrappy Snowflake wall-hanging for the short wall between our kitchen and dining room.

And that was a free pattern from Lake Girl Quilts. So, come on, Winter. Hit me with your best shot. I'm decorated and ready.

In the sewing room, I went to work on the last project from my WIPS list. Of course, no project can be completed without the assistance of my excellent helper cat. I had the sashings laid out according to size, and he held them down for me while I worked at the applique.

I was working on block number three. This area had me a little worried. That skinny stem you see there was to be applied after I'd fused ten leaves. Even with a wax paper template, I worried about getting those leaves all fused with enough wiggle room to be covered by such a skinny little stem. Instead, I fused the stem first, but I only fused it by barely touching the iron to the top and bottom, so that the middle remained free.

Then I could add the leaves and know they were place correctly. When everything was laid out, I fused the whole thing at once.

Finishing off the rest, I added the sashings, and it was ready for top-stitching.

There are 20 blocks for this quilt altogether, and so I'm making them two at a time. It would be nice to finish it while I'm still alive, and so moving it along double-time seems like a good idea. The fourth block had some similar problems with stuff tucked under other skinny stuff, and so I used that same partial technique described above to fuse the applique for Block #4.

Then I went to work top-stitching both. Here's Block #3, all finished.

What I didn't realize yet was that I'd made a mistake with Block #4. (This will all make sense in just a minute. Read on.) Smitty knew I was on the wrong track, and he tried his best to warn me.

He stood right next to the sewing machine, doing his very best to stop this travesty.

But his warnings went unheeded.

When I laid it out next to Block #3, I knew I'd done something wrong. The checkerboard sashing was supposed to be on the sides, not the top and bottom. At first, I thought I'd just sewn them on wrong, but that's not what happened. Like the first block for this quilt (shown below), 

the applique extends into the sashing, and so I had to trim and add the sashing before doing the applique. The problem is that I rotated it 90 degrees before fusing anything. (This, despite telling myself not to do that.) Now, there's no way to fix it unless I redo the whole thing.

Well. I have other ideas about how to work with it. A design decision is in order here. As I mentioned when I started, several weeks back, if you look at the finished quilt from the pattern, you can see they've done their sashings scrappy.

I didn't have enough fabrics in large enough hunks, and so I decided to do mine in two different fabrics (four fabrics when you count the inner border), reversing them for visual interest. Now that I've messed up, I've decided to start rotating more of the blocks. I'll try to get an equal number of all, and I'll start changing them up when I make the next two. In that regard, I've written myself a note to remind myself what I have in mind. There's more than one way to fix a broken block. Here are the four blocks I have for this quilt so far.

With that finished, I had in mind to make up another section for the Pieces of the Past quilt. Bernie is nearly finished, and so I'm going to need a new stitchery to work on. Next, I'll be doing the frame around the center panel. Here's the picture from the pattern cover. The last bit of embroidery I need to do before I can start sewing this together is the scroll work in the yellow section.

And, oh my. I started looking at the instructions for this, and felt like my brain was going to break if I kept reading. I'll figure that out today when I can start with fresh eyes, not tainted by sewing a block together wrong.

Coming up, we have a short camping trip planned to Cape Disappointment in Washington next week. We won't be disappointed because we're expecting rain the whole time we're there. It's a good time to get in plenty of slow-stitching. So, I'll be making the section above for Pieces of the Past, and I'm also adding a hanging sleeve to a different quilt I made some time ago. If I can get those two things prepared for next Monday's departure, I'm going to start on a little mini for Valentine's Day. I've reached the "Quilter's Choice" section of my white board, and a mini is what's next on that list. I'll say more about it in tomorrow's post.