Sunday is for puttering!!

Since I taught all day Saturday at Lake Metroparks Farmpark Quilt Show, I decided to putter aimlessly on Sunday . . .  and I think I did a great job -- of puttering, that is!?!  After church, my daughter and I headed "in-town" to the Cleveland Botanical Garden to check out the annual Orchid Show.  It was lovely -- my eyes loved taking in all the color!

 

Once home, I headed for my studio and pieced the borders for my Soupcon QAL over at Faeries and Fibres.  Tomorrow, I'll share how I used some of my Marti Michell templates to cut these border pieces.  It went together perfectly and I was happily surprised to have it all done before Downton Abbey began.  The only disappointment is that now I have to wait two weeks for the next step of this delightful little piece.

 

 

Do you chain-piece?  Do you chain-piece all the time?  I do!  And I've converted to using bits from other projects as my sew-offs (leaders and enders).  When I teach "set-in piecing simplified", I demonstrate the technique by making tumbling block units.  They are piling up and while that is good, they are the same size as the ones in my original teaching sample (here).  Last week, while organizing my samples for my template tours in preparation for the Diamond Star Playtime Sew-along, I grabbed three of them to make a 6-pointed star (fast) using one of the templates and darn it, an idea popped into my head for a slightly different sample.  I did not allow myself to be diverted by it (at that moment), but since Sunday was for puttering, I started setting some of my units together as my "sew-offs" while I pieced the borders for the piece above. 

 

And this is how far I got.  See the star in the upper left corner?

 

There is a quilt layered, patiently waiting for me each evening to pick up for hand work in the living room, but all this work I've been doing with hexagons and such reminded me about a ring of scrappy hexies I set together to illustrate Brigitte Giblin's beautiful work during my Hexagon Seminars.  It's been basted to this large toile-style panel for over a year.  I stopped because I couldn't bring myself to cut away the fabric outside the ring.  Something I saw on Pinterest in the past month gave me an idea for a "hexie border" that would preserve more of the panel.  It's more interesting than hand quilting and so I've been puttering with it for the past few evenings -- I have a draft layout from EQ5, a pile of greens, and some paper hexies -- decisions are being made slowly and I'm completely distracted from the hand quilting project. 

 

I've worked this way for years, jumping around from one thing to another, inserting the deadlines as needed.  Once in a while, I power through an entire quilt, but I always return to the puttering work flow.  Apparently there is some innate piece of me that enjoys distractions?

 

Don't forget!  Tomorrow, I'll share some Template Tips for the border I made for the quilt in the photo at the top of this post!

 

Mary Huey