Wow! Look at this! Three updates in two days!! (Don’t get used to it, LOL)

Hi, all!

I just wanted to let you know how my quilt project is going. I went to a quilt retreat September 5-7. I was working on a modified (slice and dice twice) nine patch block. Okay, more than one block. ;-) I’ve been working on these at Girls' Night Out with Roxanne Carter for a while, and making some progress, but it was awesome to be able to work on them for an extended period of time. By the time I left the retreat Sunday afternoon, I had 236 6” blocks trimmed and ready to play with. I had a few (less than a dozen) that the seams didn’t line up (1/4” or greater), but I kept them in case I found out at some point that my pattern would hide such defects.

Once I got home, I laid out a bunch of blocks on the pool table, fussing and mussing to see what configuration I might like to pursue on a larger scale. I decided early that they looked better on point, so at least one decision was made. I waded through a few more flips and flops and got something I thought I was going to like. Well, the pool table is hardly bed-sized (at least not the size of the bed it’s going on), so I decided the best place to play with the blocks was on the spare bed. That’s where it’s going, so why not? ;-) Well, that worked for a while, but then I figured out that blocks don’t hang too well vertically. :-p

My next epiphany was to take a queen-size sheet downstairs and put the blocks on there. The quilt will be about the same size as the sheet (except a little longer). I felt like a real smarty until the sheet kept getting lumps in it, even though I had taped it down. *sigh* So now I’ll be transferring the blocks to the carpet and see if that gets me anywhere.

I have a good handle on size, but I’ll need to get the whole thing laid out and then figure out how well it blends. I didn’t really plan for anything but random as I was making all the nine patches, but I don’t do random well. I’ve already decided what the outermost blocks are going to be, keeping in mind the fabric I’m going to use for the setting triangles and the border (I don’t want to have the same fabric bumping up against the border - I’m retentive that way). As of last night, I had the same number of blocks side to side and end to end, but the corners didn’t want to line up. Okay, the last corner didn’t want to line up. I’ll blame the wrinkles in the sheet which will hopefully go away once the sheet is gone. It also might be the fact that I didn’t do one row at a time - I did the outside blocks first (just like the puzzle that it is), and I might not have hit 90 degree angles on all my blocks. Now that I know what goes where on the outside, I can start row by row and make everything line up (ha). I also noticed in my playing that I missed squaring up a block or two. If I were smart, I’d have my small mat and tools with me so I can trim them on the spot... we’ll see if I end up being that smart.

I’d love to tell you I’ll post a progress picture, but I took a picture to show my mother “where it was going” and it turned out so yucky. :-p With flash, without flash... Blah. Maybe on the floor it will be better (I took that one when it was on the bed). We’ll see. I’m sure the camera won’t do the fabrics justice, but maybe I can show you something half-decent. :-)

Well, tonight is our 10-month wedding anniversary ;-) so Bill and I are going to picnic in the park and enjoy the weather, the water, and the mountains, plus some pizza pizza. ;-) Kind of an unconventional picnic item, but when you have sandwiches for lunch every day, it doesn’t sound to appealing for dinner, no matter what the atmosphere.

Toodles for now!!

Blessings,
Kristin