18 January

Each day, the blocks get more challenging.  I thought I was pretty accurate when it came to sewing small pieces together.  I'm finding out... that isn't true.  Even if I stitch two pieces together, and that is accurate, I still need to measure each pair I stitch, because if I don't, I end up having to unsew as I sew more together, because something is off, and usually it ends up being some of the first seams I take.  I do think part of my problem is when I was cutting strips way back at the beginning of organizing my scraps, I wasn't as careful about getting an exact strip, so it might be off just a tad.. and that gets magnified in these small blocks.  Those strips would be fine in a string block, where the size doesn't matter, and I'm just sewing a bunch of strings together to fit a certain size block.  But when you are working towards an exact size, with exact sized pieces, that makes a big difference.  So going forward, I need to decide if I'm going to continue to use already cut strips and squares, or if I'm going to take a larger scrap, and cut it down to what I need, and pay closer attention to how accurate I'm cutting.  Either way, I will still be using my scraps up, so that is a good thing.

18 Jan

I have decided to work on the other challenge I heard about, making the same block using up your stash. The challenge is from Border Creek Station, and they give a number of different ways the blocks can be laid out, so there are a lot of possibilities with this pattern. This one isn't dependent on getting a certain number of blocks made each day or week or even month, and you can make as many quilts as you want using the block.  So, I'm going to just keep that one in the back of my mind and as I am cutting fabric for other projects, cut some for this one, and work on it as time allows.  I think it will be an easy one to have close to my machine and work on when I want to sew, with out having to think about what I'm sewing.  Since it uses all Half Square Triangles, I'm going to print out some of my Triangulations papers for the sizes I need, and just keep some ready to sew near my machine.  Although I do have a couple other projects that I can sew with out thinking, it never hurts to have something to work on when I just have a few minutes to sew, and don't need to finish a block each time I sit down to my machine.  And if, as the year progresses, I'm not getting much done on this challenge, it can be something that gets worked on over a number of years... since none of my quilts have deadlines... I don't have to stress about how quickly I get it done.

Today, I need to get things ready for a class I'm taking tomorrow.  It is on using rulers to quilt your quilts.  I have always loved the look of ruler work, and have tried to do some on my own, but I think getting a bit of help in learning how to use them will be beneficial, and I just need to make some time to practice with them.  So I'm looking forward to the class.  It will be every other week over the next few months.  Hopefully I will learn enough and get enough ideas to start getting some of my quilts quilted and get them out of the UFO pile and into the finished pile. 

Until next time... Happy Crafting!!!