To Do Tuesday #19 - Nothing Going To Plan

I am having a bit of an interesting week.

My tasks for the last two weeks were:

- sew some blocks together for the new pattern, actually start with the 10 easy four patch ones!

- continue stitching out the formal table runner

- discuss the organic table runner with the shop

- baste the last charity quilt.

I had a bit of a disaster with my 'formal' table runner. As posted earlier, several of my blue water erasable lines did not come out and left a faint brownish line behind. This has never happened to me before! To make matters worse, I tried to get that out with a stain removal soap product and this took out some of the dye from the fabric, so I got a bit of a faded spot instead of the brown line.

Disappointing, I think this did look quite nice

Nothing much I can do about this...one reader suggested dying the whole thing. Not a bad idea, but would need to investigate this as I have never dyed anything before. For the moment though that project was put on hold as there was no point continuing. I might finish it off for myself, but not sure yet.

So I made a start on my next pattern...sewed some simple four patch blocks together and started on the alternate block the other day, merrily piecing along. I am piecing the Fancy Foot block which is an old fashioned type of block, but I think it looks great in bright colours.

Made 3 of those blocks yesterday...took me a while as I am a bit out of practice with my piecing.

Towards the late afternoon, I discovered what I thought was a slightly discoloured piece (in the photo above it is the white background in the yellow half square rectangle. Pays to have good lighting in your sewing room, as I only saw that when I took my block into the kitchen area to take a photo. Initially I thought that I had burnt the fabric...went ahead and replaced that section...only to find that the other cut pieces looked exactly the same! Then it dawned on me...I had cut those rectangles from different lots of what I thought was the same fabric. When I bought this, obviously thought they were exactly the same, but when you hold them against each other in daylight, one is slightly more on the cream side. Inspecting my three blocks, they all had one or two of the more creamy fabric in there which looked awful as the other white background is really white.

So today, I cut new rectangles from the bit of the snow white fabric that I had left (just enough!) and undid all 3 blocks and replaced the offending sections. As you are working on the bias with those rectangles, this was annoyingly tricky but I got there in the end. Now have a total of four blocks...you have to laugh really...this should not have taken more than one afternoon to piece together!

Apart from this, I did discuss another table runner for a workshop with the sewing shop and will need to get stitching on that shortly. Also bought a new panel while I was there. Too cute!

Just needs some borders and some quilting and then this can go in the Etsy shop. Love doing those panels.

So, all in all, not the bestest of weeks, but I am hoping that I am now on my way to get some things finished.

For the coming week I am planning on:

- completing the quilt top for the new pattern (fingers crossed, nothing else goes wrong)

- making a start on the new table runner, i.e. minimal marking, probably just with some chalk and trialing a new thread (Robinson-Anton). Planning to have elements in there that will be stitched with variegated thread.

- cut and sew some borders to the panel

- not hopeful but let's put it on...baste a charity quilt.

 
Hopefully things are starting to look up. LInking up to Quilt Schmilt for the To Do Tuesday #19 Linky Party

Karin

Fancy Foot Block

Piecing Diagram

For an 8in block you will need:

- 4,2 1/2in white squares
- 4, 2 7/8in white triangles
- 1, 2 7/8in each of green,blue, red and yellow triangle
- 4, 5 1/4 x 2 5/8in white rectangle
- 1, 5 1/4 x 2 5/8in each of green, blue,red and yellow rectangle

This is a basic four patch and you sew the units together as indicated above. I used the following Accuquilt dies to cut out the shapes which of course made this very easy:

- 2 1/2in square multiples (2in finished)
- 2in finished triangle multiples
- traingles in square 4in finished square


Alternatively, you can cut this yourself obviously, construct your half square triangles the usual way (I cut my squares a bit larger to make the half square triangles, i.e. 3in and cut the units to 2 1/2in). For the rectangles there is a tutorial on the net for a 12in block (see ludlow quilt and sew). Personally I would cut this with a template from Marti Michell (or similar), i.e the Multi-Size Peaky and Spike Triangle Set. As you are dealing with bias edges there is a fair amount of stretch which leads to minor inaccuracies and with a template you have those nice corners that will help you to align your pieces.

Karin

Fancy Foot Block

Made a start on my blocks for the Funky Bird Quilt recently but was too busy to post about it and then forgot all about it.

This is the Fancy Foot block. It can be found in Maggie Malone's book '5500 Quilt Block Designs' (#2164). It is a simple four patch design that looks particularly striking in these bold colours.

I used the Accuquilt GO cutter to cut out the shapes which made this a relatively easy affair, particularly for the elongated triangles which were cut with the 4in triangles in square die (the die that you use for the Storm at Sea design). While you can cut this yourself, a die like this makes this very easy and quick. The pieces align perfectly and come together quickly. Helps of course, if you think about direction beforehand...I had a whole stack of triangles the other way around and needed to re-cut them to get them the right way around!

Have everything cut out and just need to find some spare time to chain-piece my little heart out and put it all together. My HQ Sweet 16 has gone in for a service, so there is no excuse not to finish this  up in the meantime.

Karin