Mini Milestones

I have had a few mini goals in mind this week:
* finish the first applique border for the Orphan Block Medallion Quilt
* get the left hand side of Tillies Lane pieced
* get this weeks four TATW blocks completed

Yes... mission accomplished.

I decided to add these borders as partial seams, meaning I could add one basket block onto each side panel - and complete the applique; instead of needing to complete the machine blanket stitch on all the basket blocks after this border is completely attached.

Playing with the applique shapes, I decided I quite liked this flower flowing into the previous border.  I left a small amount of the flower unfused and only partially sewn.  Then once the border was sewn on, fused the last little bit down.  Now I just need to sew the last three petals.

And the partial seam end - once the remaining borders have been added, I will hide the end of the other bias stem under a leaf.

The other end of the stem... a long piece of stem that will need to be sewn into the other basket, once all the borders have been added.

Tillies Lane... it just keeps getting bigger and more exciting.  I can finally see light at the end of this tunnel.  I love looking at all these little scraps.

And the four TATW blocks for this week.

And the blocks so far... I am officially over half way now :o)  Actually I've got two more than what is showing... I need to reorganise my room now if I'm going to add them onto the design wall, and the design floor is currently occupied.

As far as construction of these blocks goes, I finally worked out that with my colour placements, it was easier to make a light set, and a dark set of strips for each block.  The light set I press away from the light solid (towards the centre), and dark set I press away from the dark strip - or the strip in the centre, as it is not always the darkest fabric.

Then after sewing the strip sets together top and bottom, they are subcut, and arranged in order.  I've found that visually, I need to follow these steps, to make sure that I don't get confused.  The sets all need to be pointing in the same direction.  Then I start unpicking seams, starting with the left hand strip and the top seam, and moving to the next seam down on each set.  

Once I've unpicked the first four sets, I flip the next two sets over.

And unpick the last two seams.  Opening out the sets is when the magic happens.  This is the order that the strips open out into.  Pretty but not what I want.

So I reorganise the sets to make the centre diagonal stripe the dark one.

All ready to piece together!