Quilting through Rose-colored Trifocals!: And the beat goes on . . . . .

Thursday, June 15, 2017

And the beat goes on . . . . .

The past couple weeks of the Long Time Gone SAL have been all about triangles -- HST's and flying geese. Little HST's and little flying geese!?!

My typical strategy is to use my big blocks of time for cutting and then grab time to stitch as I can.

Chain piecing to the rescue!!

I am using Marti Michell's templates for the cutting (you can check out her blog posts HERE -- they are full of lots of extra tips and tricks) so I'm not trimming my HST's once they are made.

Sometimes they look a bit wobbly but with 25 years of "fudging" experience under my belt the end results usually work. A quick layout to get the pattern organized and then time to leave the room.

When I came back it was easy to pickup out the HST's that needed changed like the oranges and yellows together and the clumps of polka dots. Of course, you know that you can shift pieces around forever and still see pieces to move.

At some point, you just have to stop adjusting and start stitching.

I join everything into pairs.

Then the pairs into "4-patches" and then pairs of "4-patches".

It's easier to fudge units together in sections like this than in rows because I can "nest the seams" on all four sides of each section.

And a finished block!! Looks a bit wobbly around the edges but the points are crisp and I can fudge a bit more during the final assembly.

Time to take on the flying geese!

Have you explored all the posts on Instagram from the quilters that are doing this SAL?

Check out #longtimegonesal -- there are over 5000 posts -- lots of color inspiration!!

I love seeing how others organize their colors.

My primary focus with this group of blocks was to spread the yellows around since they are the lightest value in the blocks so they jump right out!

I now have all the flying geese units finished!

I'm thinking I'll use black for the sashing and have started to audition possibilities on the design wall.

What do you think?

I'm still building the (itty, bitty) pineapple blocks -- 1" cut strips but so manageable with Marti's template set!! They are the "leaders and enders" for all my studio work these days and I'm past the halfway point!!

This week also saw the delivery of four large lap robes to a local mission team heading down into Kentucky to work with the Appalachia Service Project in July. A second batch will head out in August with another group. My quilting gang works hard on this project!!