a little of this, a little of that

Time in my sewing room the past week seems to have been less than usual.  I can't explain why, but some weeks are just like that.

I did accomplish some things, though!

First up: tiger parts.

Not as many as last week, but progress!  I think there are just 65 sections left to go, which is fewer than half, so that is good news.

Next, the color explorer challenge.  I layed out all the blocks on the design floor and then squinted a little.  I knew that a lot of fussing would lead to nothing much better than a few tweaks, so I let it roll with this setup.

They already look to be floating on my floor and seeing this photo (basically it gives you the distance perspective) had me excited!

But I cut sashings and borders and got busy sewing.  I didn't want to (who really enjoys this part?), but I powered through and came out with a top!  I was encouraged as sewed and started to see the floating with the grey background as well.  That made it worth it to just keep sewing.

I need to decide how to quilt it.  I'm debating between just simple straight lines, maybe even in the ditch, or something fancier.  For now, it's waiting a bit.

You'll notice the bottom right corner is not a Polaroid photo...  Growing up, my grandpa had a Polaroid camera.  He always put the photos in his shirt pocket to develop them.  I was convinced as a kid that the photos required that pocket to turn out correctly (he may or may not have told me that, but whatever the case, that's what I thought).  So I used a scrap of shirting plaid cat hammock leftovers (that looked like it had been cut to be used for a shirt, but never sewn!) to make a pocket.  It only took two tries to cut the pocket piece correctly and three for the background.  I was not happy with my brain at that point.

But the top is done and the blocks do look like they're floating, which was the goal.

I'm planning to make a little printed key for the challenge and colors, something that hopefully I can use some program or another on my computer to make it look like a little Polaroid photo, and stick it in that pocket.  (It's sewn down like a pocket, not all the way around.)

And last but not least, the Pantone quilt challenge.

I believe I last left you with some indecision about what I was going to make.  In digging for links to the pattern, I found that the birds quilt has a quilt along - starting March 10th - offered by the pattern designer.  Which is rather convenient, since the Pantone challenge starts just a few days later.

So I clicked the link and signed up.  At least I think I did.  I've not gotten any sort of confirmation, which makes me wonder if I spelled my email address wrong?  I suppose it doesn't really matter because I'm making the quilt either way.

To start the quilt-along, I need to have all my fabrics cut and ready to sew a boatload of half square triangles the first week.  I had purchased the magenta and a blue for the birds, but knew my stash could likely provide the remaining fabrics.  Of course, I had planned for the blue to be the background and then that FAILED.

In this photo, the white (which is actually a white-on-white) was to be the background, but I was really not feeling something this stark against more traditional quilt colors.

Back to the store.

And forget to take any photos until after I'm done cutting all the colored fabrics...

And let me tell you how ingrained cutting pieces that are half-inch, not quarter-inch stops.  Thankfully I cut things too big, but was pretty mad at myself to KEEP having to go back and trim a quarter of an inch off things.

Next up, background - lots more pieces!

And this is all the pieces.  Beaks and eyeballs are there on the right.  Backgrounds on the bottom, body parts in the middle and half square triangles (which are above the bird in what I have decided to call clouds) are at the top.  The clouds were a different color in the original pattern, but I think this will work.  Worst case, I have a boatload of half square triangles that don't look good and I have to make more.  (I bought extra background, but not as much as I thought I did...I bought what the pattern said, but once I use it for sashing, it's going to be close, I fear.  Perhaps I should buy more?  You know, while it's still available?)

(Isn't that background great?  I mean, I'm a nerd about words on fabric, but this just seems to be perfect for this project.  Finally something is going right.)

I'm also patting myself on the back a tiny bit because I did reduce the stash.  Never mind that there are leftovers of blue and magenta that will probably outpace the subtraction.  We're not talking about that.  (We're also not talking about that stack of fabric for the other quilt that may or may not get made.)

And that was my sewing week.  I also had an appliance repair guy here who told me my stove needs a new part.  (Yes, the new stove that I bought in August.)  It is still useable at least.  And I shoveled a LOT of snow Saturday morning.  Heavy wet snow that melted really fast.  But getting it cleaned off our walk meant that cleared off sooner and was overall safer.  I was sore Sunday morning, though!

Today is full of chores again, but I'm hoping to get a little sewing time in later today.  We'll see.  I've decided to focus on tiger parts, no matter how loudly this new bird project is screaming at me, until the quilt along starts on Friday.  Next week you'll get to see how well I did with that!

Happy quilting,

Katie