The Importance of Corners and Seam Allowance

Well, it's been a funny old time in the All The Good Ones household.  Dylan injured his knee at school - falling and colliding with a hunk of concrete, resulting in a largish gaping hole.  We have spent the last couple of weeks being vigilant with the disinfectant and cover-up plasters... and finally we are seeing progress.  Somewhere along the line the dog has had a recurrence of her breast cancer... with an ulcerated teat which we ended up getting removed.  A very doped up dog came home from the vets... and after a couple of weeks of extra care, she is almost all better again.  We've had an unveiling (a commemorative ceremony for unveiling a headstone), a celebration party for a dear friend who has asbestos-is, fundraising activities for Nadia's snow trip... mixed in the the normal work/school/home routines.  I am officially knackered!

I've got a bit behind with my VQR sampler blocks.  Monika has been making great strides, with another finish last weekend.  This block is cool seen as an individual, but it creates a very interesting secondary pattern too...

I discovered that the units that were completed for my last block attempt ended up with very small seam allowances on these corner bits.  So my sewing time was spent un-sewing the blocks that had caught up parts, and then undoing the other bits, so I could start over.  I'll need to cut some slightly larger squares.  Hmm.  Oh well!

On the promising progress side of things... I have two whole corners FM quilted!  Woohoo!  This means I am over half way.  I love CORNERS!!!

A little closer...

And just a reminder, the coloured stars have rustic hand quilting... I'm up to the stage now where I need to do some more hand quilting before I can do any more machine work.

One of the Craftsy classes I have had in my wish list had a sale... I just had to buy this Amy Gibson Irish Chain class, because I love this quilt.  Simple.  Clean.  Gorgeous.

I have this fabric bundle, which has sat in my fabric cupboard since about October 2013.  I have been pondering how it would look using the two prints (Larkspur meadow) in the large (beige) triangle position, and using the various solids for the smaller nine patch blocks, and the cream for the cream.  Hmmm... something to think about.  Any opinions?

You may remember that I thought about using the fabric for this particular quilt pattern, but then had a coronary when I realised that it was constructed of 2" strips... no way, no how!

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Last sewing day was a bit of a nightmare.  I decided to start on the Red Cross block, which is a foundation paper pieced block.  Monika has already made her version...

And this was the version in the book...

Flicking through the book, this was one of the quilts I loved.  It has MY colours, I really like the block, and I love the setting... with the large grey triangles forming an on point centre square.  Very modern, but also very traditional... and I love the quilting, although you would have to be mental to even consider quilting all those pebbles!  So that covers the GOOD.

 And even these cute little units were pretty too.

And then it went downhill in a major way.  Cue the BAD and the UGLY...

Sometimes foundation piecing just does not go the way it is supposed to.  And it is so frustrating when the pieces get caught up underneath, regardless of how carefully you handle them.  After all the likes and loves in this post so far, you would maybe expect me to admit to wanting to make this quilt, and in some ways I would.  BUT, and that is a big but, I hate the way the four small foundation units fit together, as they leave a lot of scope for ugly meeting points.  Go ahead, scroll back up and check out the way the rectangles join up.  In fact, I had pretty much crossed this one off my list of possibles, because of the foundation piecing.  I think I would much rather just piece the units completely, and miss out the foundation piecing altogether.  Looking at the block, I think that would be pretty easy.  I feel the need to do some EQ7 designing.  Something else to think about in the grand scheme of things.