A Bear of a Block

Good morning, my friends. There I was, sewing away in my sewing room, minding my own business when mayhem broke loose. I nearly lost my life being mauled by a bear block. Allow me to explain.

First, Sadie showed up to help.

Nothing I was doing interested her, and so she went back upstairs. I'm told she was giving a TED talk about how to ready one's winter body for next year's bikini season.

That was okay because Smitty was there to help.

He assisted me while I finished up the applique for the eagle block.

And there it is. It still needs top-stitching, but I set it aside while I made the bear block.

So, this is pretty much all the instruction you get with these quilt blocks. There's also a diagram showing the positioning of the lettered pieces, but no clues about how to sew them together. It didn't matter with this bear paw block. It's pretty obvious how it goes together. To explain the notations below, where triangles are involved, it gives the size of the pieces if you cut them as they'll finish, but in parentheses it suggests cutting them larger and then trimming them to size. 

For HST's, the cut-larger-and-trim-to-size method gives me the best chance at accuracy. And so I cut them to three inches, bisected them from corner to corner, and then sewed them together. Then, I trimmed them to 2-1/8 inches.

From there, I sewed them together. They're all oriented in the same direction, right? Wrong. No. They're different, but that didn't stop me from sewing half of them together in the wrong orientation. But there's no crying in sewing, and so I took them apart and resewed them correctly.

And that was all well and good, except when I tried to sew them to the larger pieces, they were too big. If I'd read to the next column in my book, I might have seen this. Oy. The finished size was to be 1-3/4 inches. Not the 2-1/8 inch I'd trimmed them to. 

Okay, and so I took them all apart. Again. And then I trimmed them to the proper size. Again.

Then, I sewed them together in groups of two, checking carefully to make sure I'd oriented them properly. When they were sewn together, I took them to the ironing board to press. Aaargh! Here, I was very tempted to pick up my scissors and stab myself in the jugular vein.

Happily, I resisted the urge to end my life right then and there. I took that one apart. Again. And then sewed it together correctly. From there, I could finish sewing them into four paws.

And then I could finish sewing the whole thing together. Sheesh. That took pretty much all afternoon.

It still needs to have larger pieces sewn all around to create the background for the bear applique, but I decided to quit while I was ahead. It seemed dangerous to continue. Talking myself down off the ledge, I went upstairs to get started on dinner. I'll get going on the bear applique today.

The only other sewing I did yesterday was to take the first stitches on My Embroidered Garden. This is going to be fun to stitch.

When I finish here, I'll continue on. 

It's a gray day today, but only a slight chance of rain. I want to get outside and clean up the herb garden some. Weeds are springing up, and the dead chives are splayed out all over the ground. I want to hoe the weeds and pick up the dead stuff. Next year's crop of chives will appreciate it if I clear away the detritus and give them access to sunlight. That'll be my day's workout effort. Probably, I'll fill the bird feeders while I'm out too. 

Thanksgiving is approaching, although it's late in the month this year. Mae and I agreed that we'd do Thanksgiving here, and they'll do our family Christmas feast. Just this morning, I made a list of menu items for our Thanksgiving dinner. It's early to be thinking about that, but somehow making lists keeps the chaos in my brain toned down to a dull roar.

So that's all I have for you today. It's the start of a new week. Time to get after my slow-stitching.