Prairie Queen - Check (!)

W ell i finally got them done .. I was so frustrated earlier today, i didn't think that I would get this far. But I did :D I have 8 of the pink background, 6 of the burgundy and 2 orphans which are twins but for the background fabrics.

Basically I had to go back and square up every single piece that I hadn't sewn .. and then the pieces that were wonky I had to think about what corner was going to be my outside corner - the wonky cut was hidden in an inside seam .. that way I could square the blocks .. some of my inside seams are ... "interesting" to say the least .. but my blocks are 99.99% square! And you can't ask for better than that .. I have more of the pink flowered background than originally planned, but with the wonky cuts I did, I'm glad that I had some background to use - Of course the worse ones had to be the burgundy ones .. can you guess .. I really liked that particular background fabric :S ... ah well .. these blocks can be said to be DONE and that's all that counts .. next ones .. Sisters ..

To err is human - but must I be so good at it?

S ometimes I'm a total twit .. but of course you already know that - My cutting for the squares on the corner pieces for this block is off .. so no matter how i twitch, tweak, tug or pray .. they are not going to be perfectly square .. so all I can do know is minimize the mess the best I can - I have 9 blocks left to do and one is half-finished .. Not sure I'll do them tonite, we'll have to see .. it's almost 1am now

I had a busy-ish day with 4 hrs sleep, so yup .. I'm whacked .. as long as I don't get to frustrated, I should be okay .. I've realized what I did .. had an inkling when I did it - you know the .. "I just didn't do what I think I did, did I? "moment .. and hope for the best. Fabric shifted while I was cutting and I didn’t stop when it shifted .. And of course Miss Twit here was cutting a stack .. So this twitch affects a good chunk of the blocks. Well more than half the battle is the realization and acceptance that you screwed up .. Okay .. now to work with it ..

They are making up pretty quick - so we'll see .. I want to get at least ½ of the 9 done tonite.

Oh and I've already sewn one block upside-down lol

I'm seriously thinking of calling this quilt "Century of Progress?" yes question mark is intentional ..

Early evening Update:

I think I'm really going to be struggling with these blocks .. course having another headache doesn't help :S ... Plan of action is to square up each section as I go along - that way, it should be closer to being square and I'll know what pieces are good and use them as the guide for the ones that are really wonky .. wish me luck! I've been frogging a bit today

Meet the Orphans

I figured this was going to happen - I ended up being 2 squares short of the dark green - and 4 squares short of the light green - how did I know .. for once, my wacky math was right .. but I kept hoping that I had measured wrong .. hey .. one can always hope ..

While I was able to match up the light green pretty close to tone, I wasn't so lucky with the dark green .. I probably should have done the olive green that I had ... but I thought this matched the lighter print well .. hmm for some reason the light green looks yellow in this picture .. but it's actually very close the lighter green calico print ... go figure :\

As you can see the background fabrics aren't exactly the same .. one is like a burgundy and the other a pink .. they do look well together and I am making 8 of each fabric - so there's a nice balance .. this background fabric is so delicate that I'm leery of giving a tug as i'm afraid that it will stretch all out of true .. Thank God for Speed Starch .. gives it the weight i need it to be and stops my fear of the odd tug. Another thing that I rather hate to do is I'm pressing away from the 4 patches .. the bulk of the seams created all sorts of havoc in the first block i did .. So instead of pressing towards the dark .. i'm pressing towards the light .. I hope it won't be to obvious when I finally get this quilted.

Prairie Queen ...

One down .. 15 to go :D

This block is super simple to make .. strip-piecing on the 4 patch section - and the rest a 9 patch - and what's even better about this block .. no crazy 8^th inch measurements - whole inch or ½" cuts .. this is a nice treat.

These will make up in no time as the cutting is all done and I have the strips all stitched for the 4-patches. I just had to make one up to see how it looks. I rather like it and am pretty pleased with it and myself - The corners are off a wee bit, but i'm really not going to worry about it .. now if it was upside, okay - I'll start doing frog stitch .. but it's not, so I won't. My background for this is really soft and delicate, so the less ripping i do on these blocks, the happier I'll be

Well, it's only 3am tonite at this point - I'm tired so the one block is it for today - that way no mistakes (hopefully) and I can be fresh for it tomorrow

Simple Works me thinks ...

The more I think of it, the stronger I feel that the blocks that are needed should be more simplistic. The rest of the overall design is 'busy' enough .. not that it's too busy .. but could very easily end up that way .. So Quilt-Pro was booted again .. I really need to update my software for this program ...

I started plopping blocks in and again, it wasn't simplistic enough .. would have been nice to be able to implement the 54-40 or Fight block, but ah well .. just to busy for this. So running through my mind are the easy blocks to do (heh .. I can live with that!!) I thought of the split 9 patch, double 9 patch (Irish chain), steps to the altar (that didn't look good) and the Prairie Queen (patch variation).

None of these have the actual fabric scans in them, just used whatever was on 'hand' so to speak .. this was just a fishing expedition .. These will be made with all the greens and I think that I have some unbleached muslin kicking around that should work quite nicely .. if not, I'm sure I'll figure something out :D. So far the top two pictured here (Double 9 patch, Prairie Queen) are appealing the most to me ..

So - I'll let these sit for a day and see how they feel ... I am going to go with a more simplistic block here .. the other blocks past this part are complex enough that I really don't want to confuse everyone - including myself lol