In progress....part 1

So after my last post, I thought I'd try and document this quilt making caper a bit better, so I can show people what it is, and  how I do it! Warts and all I'm afraid, as in "the stylist was on their day off" I doubt I'll teach anyone what to do, but it's fun to document the process! And this is all the 'self taught' stuff I've found that works for me.

So I'm making another one of this, as I said at the bottom of the post, it's not for me, but another custom order (yippee!) My Layer cake and Jelly Roll of this arrived, and I got stuck in yesterday morning.

So the 'den' is semi prepared for the big event. Vacuumed, at least! The desk is in THE best spot for a lovely spring day, I even had the windows open- and the heating OFF! That is such a hard habit to break at the end of winter, right? Machine moved off the table so I have optimum space!

 I have some table protectors on top of the desk, both from IKEA, but the cutting mat fits OK as well. I got cutting- this pattern makes lots of blocks, and lots of cutting! So as I'm cutting (and I sit and rotary cut, which I didn't think was unusual until I went to a few classes. No table is ever high enough for me not to have an aching back after 5mins!) I'm using the old hot pink Post-It notes to keeps track of the sizes and piles....

Oh, a sneak peak of the 'extra' space- music is very important to me while I work, I can't stand the tv on in the day, plus there's never anything that important I need to watch. So the laptop and Cd's it is! night time is different though, trashy TV and Twitter chat keeps me going! My next big purchase will be a 'wheely' chair and chair mat so I can 'scoot' from machine to iron without having to stand and shift the chair!

So the reason behind all my labelling- I know exactly what bits to join to what! This cutting took about 4-5 hrs all up.

But the piecing together is a lot quicker when everything's marked! Today called for A + B + C.

I had a very unhelpful 'cat stop' that insisted on sitting at the back of the machine, where the fabric usually falls down . Unhelpful that I got attacked when I tried to move her!

And the simplest way I've found to sew ALL those seams? Chain piecing, So one continuous strip of sewing, then snip it all and move on to the next line. I used to try and join it all together without the snipping after each line- tangled mess, I'm afraid.

So there's a little start to the quilt. I pressed these ones, and got the D + E block done as well today, then had the rest of the afternoon off!