Stories from the Sewing Room

I've been working on Grassy Creek. One thing I discovered that wasn't mentioned in the directions is that the seams of string pieced border units really need to be aligned with the seam lines of the blocks in the top. I discovered this the hard way after sewing a 93" seam and then unsewing when I saw how bad it looked without the alignment. I've marked the photos with blue lines to show where I aligned.

Here is my quilt top with two of the borders attached.

Log Cabin Stars is another one where I found I needed to mark where each seam line should meet in order to look best. I hasn't anticipated this and it took a while to mark everything and sew two rows together. Again, I marked the photo with blue lines to indicate where I drew alignment marks. That dark mark on the lower left star is a shadow from my phone.

I was able to complete my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for this month. I used Sandra's Strippy Slab Star pattern and decided to make two blocks for each color that is assigned. Here are my blocks in progress. I notice I had one of the HST turned in the picture. Oops!

And here are my finished blocks. See that green floral print just under the monkey print in the photo below? That is a leftover from a shirt I made my daughter when she was around three. She's a senior in college now! Actually, now that I think about it, the green Christmas tree print is from an outfit I made her when she was in kindergarten. Time sure flies.

I found a few areas where I can improved on next month's blocks (watch where the seams are on the outsides of the center square, watch those awkward skinny strips on the HST pieces, watch where you put the colored low volume corners--I did two LV color on each block), but I am quite pleased with them overall. 

They didn't make much of a dent in the green basket. It is one of my fuller scrap baskets, so that's okay. Some of my greens need to be cut into much smaller pieces than what I used in the blocks if you know what I mean.

Are you a member of the Modern Quilt Guild? If so, I listened to and recommend: On Demand Education - Value of Quilts: Panel Discussion by MQG. I hadn't been a member for quite a number of years, but rejoined because I am attending Quilt Con next month. Will you be there?

I've completed two quilts for others. Trish's table runner with Lovely Loops and Vegas Gold thread. (Vegas Gold is one I was gifted and it's surprisingly versatile.) We layered InsulBright on top and Quilters Dream 80/20 on the bottom. That was my first time quilting through InsulBright on the longarm and it was no sweat.

I quilted Pat H.'s quilt with Toss Up and light pink thread on top, white thread on the back. She left all the decisions up to me and she hasn't seen it yet. 

I'll be back tomorrow with the OMG link up. 

Linking with For the Love of Geese/Quiltery, My Quilt Infatuation, Alycia Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and So Scrappy.