A Weekend of Sewing

I wanted to spend some concentrated time sewing this weekend.  What with the Olympics on and weather so nice, I have been finding it difficult to sew in the evenings.  There just too much else going on.  So, I took the entire weekend (except for some Boo time and going to Costco - what a scarey annoying place to be on a weekend!) and I worked on projects. 

I got up early on Saturday and got started with a nice cuppa coffee.  I wanted to take on a project that needed finishing, so I turned to the scrappy Mod Mosaic blocks that have been sitting around for more than a year.  I just could not bring myself to deal with them in the past because several of the blocks were poorly made and I only had 16 blocks total, counting the bad blocks.  Luckily, I was on a mission and got started.  I re-made the 2 worst Mod Mosaic blocks that I received from the swap that were holding up completion.  I tried to save parts of them, which probably just made the whole process take even longer than if I had started new blocks.  It took me about 1.5 hours for each block - so there went most of the morning! 

Then I laid out the blocks (with the 2 new blocks I could put together a small quilt top - 4 x 4), decided on which block went where and got started putting them together with 1" Kona white sashing (the same width as the Kona white used to make the blocks).  Along the way, I heard a voice in my head nudging me to make more blocks so that I could have a larger quilt.  Do you ever do that to yourself?  Do you think that you just need to make a few more blocks to make the quilt larger which would then make it "better"? 

Well, I silenced that voice very quickly when I counted out how many more blocks I would need to have a larger quilt and multipled that by 1.5 hours each block.  No way was I going to invest more time making even more blocks so the top would sit around even longer while I made it bigger. 

Common sense prevailed and I have now put the top together.  I can't say that I am wild about it, but I can say that the top is done. and here it is:

  

Then I put together Wendi's basket blocks for the Bee Awesome bee.  This bee was started specifically to deal with unfinished projects that the group might have from blocks they received in other bees that weren't made properly, or where members dropped out and you never received your blocks even though you made blocks for everyone else...you know how it goes sometimes.  Wendi's blocks were very sweet and very simple.  That pretty much shot Saturday what with my trip to Costco and all. 

Sunday arrived bright and early and I decided to take some strips of fabric that a friend in the guild gave me and make a postage stamp block out of them.  Pretty little strips in purples and blues.  The strips were already sewn together and then I cut them into 2" blocks.  I decided on a complicated arrangement that required me to cut apart most of the strips of blocks that I had just made and after laying it all out and having just enough little blocks - I made a BIG mistake and trimmed a little block down because it looked too big.  Yikes!  I didn't have any more of the fabric, so I then tried to trim down every block that was in that part of the block so I could finish what I had started.  That was my SECOND BIG mistake.  I should have stopped and thought about what I would do and regrouped.  Instead, I soldiered through and ended up with the biggest lopsided mess you could ever expect to see!  It's a finished lopsided mess, however, so I guess that's something to be said for it ... but there will be no photos of this mess!

I was a little gun-shy after that experience and thought I should carefully think about what I was going to take on next.  I'm in a Round Robin Bee with 3 other quilty friends of mine and I had been spending quite a bit of time thinking about what I would do for my round for Sheetal's center medallion.  Here is Sheetal's medallion with a 1.5" linen border that I have added:

She asked for a scrappy approach, but I was having a little trouble with the contrast between the very planned center medallion and the fabrics that she sent along, which indeed were very scrappy.  I finally decided that I would use this linen and a lovely Cloud 9 organic fabric as the segway between her rather formal medallion and the scrappy rounds to come.  I will show you my next step or my completed round in the next blog - depending upon how quickly I finish and when I have time to blog again. 

I hope you are all enjoying your August and spending time working less and enjoying more!  I'm thinking about ice cream right now - must be summer, eh?

Aaaaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household.