Tuesday, February 19, 2013

2013 Quilt - The First Two Blocks


My day off yesterday was so productive in the morning that I actually had time to work on some sewing in the afternoon/evening! I am in a quilt guild that meets one time per month and selects a few blocks to work on each month.  It is fun because although it is technically a “block of the month” group our instructor is slightly against the idea of blocks of the month because who wants to have a quilt that is just like everyone else’s?!?  With that being said we are always presented with different variations for blocks and ways to alter our pieces.  It is also fun because they present new sewing techniques and opportunities to help with areas that may be difficult to you.  I am not an expert at all and still need lots of help so it is a good group!  I was 4 blocks behind and being that I just picked up the blocks yesterday I picked the two that looked like they would be the easiest to start on.  I haven’t pieced in over a year so it took me a little bit to get back in the groove.  As you will see in the pictures below my work is not perfect but it is done and I like how it all turned out! 

The theme for this quilt is stars and log cabins.  I have never done a quilt with a dark background so I picked a solid black base color to mix things up.  The rest of the quilt will be done with bright colors, as many as I can find.  I picked up a few fat quarters last week when I was traveling in Albuquerque, NM and that is where I also found the black for the base.  I was trying to decide if I should go with a black that has some pattern to it but I decided to stick with the solid.  Because I am a novice at all of this I knew for sure that I didn’t want something that had any direction to the print which could accentuate my many mistakes.  I need all the help I can get to hide mess ups so non-directional print is almost always what I go with!  I had never been to the quilt store that I bought the black and a few colors at and I loved it, I will be visiting again soon on my next trip through Albuquerque! 

 
The first block I did, hanging in the window of my car at work today.  All of these fabrics were new ones that I bought last week. 


This is the second block that I did and I had a few issues with it.  The center piece is from some fabric my mom sent me from Abu Dhabi and I LOVE this fabric!  The fabric is very light and stretches easily and was difficult to work with though so it was a good thing I loved the pattern, if I didn't I would have given up!  Also, the circle was not printed perfectly round so fussy cutting was not as easy as I had hoped it would be.  Did I mention this was my first time ever fussy cutting anything?  I hoped the outer colors could be brought together as they are all the same print, just different colors.  I could pick apart the issues all day but we have quilt guild tonight so hopefully I can get some advice on how to avoid some of the issues that I had next time!  Bottom line, I finished two blocks and overall liked how they turned out!

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