Postcard from Sweden QAL

I decided (perhaps in a moment of insanity) to participate in mmm! quilts' Postcard from Sweden quilt along.  I had purchased the quilt kit from Stitch Stash Diva on Etsy a few weeks before I saw the post about the quilt along on Instagram.  I wasn't going to start it yet since I don't have it on my list for my quilt guild's UFO Challenge.  But the fabric in all its bright rainbow gloriousness kept calling to me.  And I caved.  I am fantastic about starting new projects, not so great at the finishing.  I always have 60 million things in progress.  Maybe I can actually get this one done in the time prescribed?
I started cutting last week.  I made a bunch of labels to help with organization.  You can grab a free copy of my labels on my free patterns tab.  I got everything cut and then decided that there was enough fabric left to cut a mini version of the quilt too.  I was only short a few squares of the thistle and peach colors, so I ordered more of those since no one had them locally.  Nothing like ordering a fat quarter so that you can cut a 2.5" square out of it!
After that, I laid everything out and started pairing up the fabrics according to the layout in the pattern.  By the way, you can download a free copy of the Postcard from Sweden pattern from Jeli Quilt's Craftsy site.  I broke the initial cutting into two days, the mini cutting I did in one, and the pairing up took two days.  I got the pairing up finished up yesterday.  

Then the reality and the panic set in.  Even though I labeled all the colors before pairing, after pairing I only have them labeled with their positions.  I will have to go back look up each color to make sure I get the placement correct.  I'm also a little worried that my HST aren't going to come out exact and I will have to trim them all to a smaller size.  I'm not the best at accurate triangle sewing.  And I will need to sew the project that's laid out on my design wall fairly quickly (and it's really not a quickly-type quilt) so that I can use the design wall to lay this one out.  Panic!  Panic!  Deep breaths.  It's just a quilt.

On a side note, I started off pressing my fabric with Best Press and it was leaving blotches all over the fabric that didn't dry away.  Have you ever had this happen?  You can see it a little bit in the Delft fabric above.  I was worried, so switched over to just spritzing the fabric with water.  Too bad, because the first few had a lot better body and will be easier to sew, but I couldn't risk the blotches.

Another side note, my nice camera seems to no longer focus, even in manual mode.  So I'm using my cell phone only and I feel like I'm not getting the best quality photos, even though I upgraded my phone over the weekend.  I feel like the cell phone photos are really grainy.  Any tips for bettering the quality would be appreciated.  

We had a burst of really nice weather the last few days and I noticed my daffodils are starting to come up.  We have a few shrubs that outgrew their spaces and needed to be transplanted before they are actively growing, so I knew it needed to be asap based on the growth of the daffodils.  We pulled two of them and moved them this weekend.  One was a lilac--that thing had super deep and spreading roots.  The other was a hydrangea and it had a surprisingly small root system.  I think I'm going to pull out my knock out roses too because they only look good while they're blooming.  Between that and the die-offs I've had with the perennials the last few seasons, my foundation is looking rather bare at the moment.

I put my kids to work cutting down the dead stuff from my lower garden while we were dealing with the upper.  My son pulled a milkweed stalk that had a good six feet of root attached.  He was operating it like a lasso.  I've never seen one have a root like that.  I also was unpleasantly surprised to find that the deer had ripped out a few branches off of two different evergreen shrubs down there.  And pulled some of the irises out of the ground again.  At least those recover easily.

I also did a hard prune on my spireas since they were scraggly and out of control.  We found an unexpected bird nest in one of them.  It was only a few inches off the ground.  I'm wondering what used it last year.  It was pretty small.

Well, I'd better get to my usual daily tasks of cleaning, cooking, and sewing.  I'm certainly not lacking things to do in any of those categories.


12 comments

  1. Hi Anne-Marie,
    Your fabrics all look lovely for the Postcard! I enlarged my square to 7" for 6" HSTs and had plenty of fabric to trim the blocks down so I wouldn't stress about that. I only sewed two blocks together so far but I didn't want to be too far ahead of schedule on this QAL. ~smile~ Roseanne

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    1. Hi Roseanne, Thank you for the lovely comments. I started sewing the other day and was so relieved that I had enough spare to trim to size. What a relief!

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  2. I love the idea of doing a smaller quilt with the leftovers!

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    1. I got the idea when I saw one of the sponsors offered a mini quilt kit. I had plenty of all but two of the fabrics.

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  3. I think it's very smart to cut two Postcards at once! I kinda wish I had done that.

    I found it helpful to make a color printout of the page from the pattern that shows the layout in true color, and also to print out the numbered triangles layout. I had them side by side next to my sewing machine to double check things as I sewed them. Perhaps that might help you, too!

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    1. Hi Louise, now that I've started sewing I am referring to the pattern for orientation and color as well as using my labeled mini quilt pieces to help me keep it straight. It's slow going, but it works (I think!).

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  4. Can't WAIT to see your mini!! That's what I'm thinking of doing, too.

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  5. Hi Anne Marie: I wasn't planning to but I caved as well. I've always wanted to make this quilt so I may as well now. I'm currently taking photos with an old ipad and I know how you feel about the graininess of photos. I hoping the problem with my camera is just batteries but for some reason I keep forgetting to get new ones.

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    1. Hi Lisa, thanks for commenting. That reminds me that I have a smaller camera in the closet that just needs some charged batteries. Maybe I should try that one out and see if my quality improves vs. cell phone. (Going to retrieve said camera now.)

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  6. LOL I can so relate to a few things: 'moment of insanity' and '60 million things'... to name just two! I haven't started sewing yet, but plan to assemble in rows... I think.... Great idea to do a mini as well! Thanks for linking up. :-)

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