Prioritizing

Sedona Star 1.0

For a change of pace, today's post is (mostly) about what I'm not going to make!

Early in January I had a big hunt through my stash for this orange fabric, which I wanted for My Country House. It is the perfect orange, not too gold and not too brown, but that's beside the point right now. The point is that my search started a whole process of digging through all my old quilty projects and making some decisions:

1. Keep going
2. Keep going but make some changes
3. Toss.

The result has been that suddenly I've been working on, and thinking about, a whole bunch of projects at the same time. There hasn't been much to show, because I'm spread too thin. For example, in February I set myself a schedule to get Texas Star to the flimsy stage. According to the schedule, I should now have 227 stars joined up. As of today, the total stands at 146...

...which is progress over last time...

...but not ideal. Still, although progress is slow, I think we will all agree that it is looking pretty good. 

What you may not remember is that this is Texas Star 2.0. In 2011 (before this blog), after about 25 years and two cross-continental moves, Texas Star 1.0 went in the bin. At that point there were about 250 machine-pieced stars finished and ready to join. But, it just had too many problems, including dodgy fabrics and dodgier sewing. About 16 months later, Texas Star 2.0 got off to a much better start, and it will definitely be finished. But for now, I'm packing it away, because as I said, I'm spread too thin.

As you've probably guessed, the project I'm not going to be finishing is Sedona Star, shown at the top of the page. In fact, those photos are all that remain, because it all went in the bin in February. It had many issues, but the biggest was that it was big -- bed sized -- and my colour scheme was more suited to a wall quilt. So yes, Sedona Star 2.0 will be smaller. It is all planned, but not started.

I've already mentioned that this project, Trick or Treat baskets, was abandoned last fall:

Baskets 1.0

In fact I had about 12 to 15 done, but there are no photos, and these went in the bin in February too. Gosh, I imagine you are saying, I know they could have been used somewhere. And surely something could have been done with all those pretty Sedona Star circles. Yes, I thought about that quite a bit. But finally I realized that I can't do it all, and it would be a bigger shame if my newer, and much nicer, projects didn't get made because I was still flogging a dead horse with these.

So, Down in the Garden will get the nod, and we will see what happens when I focus on just one project at a time. I think it will be a perfect summertime project. :D

Paper Piecing Sedona Star Month 2, Part 2

A TQS member has asked me for more detail on my paper piecing method for Sedona Star, Month 2. Maybe it is lucky that I still haven't finished all those blocks! I went back and enhanced the original photo of the template with my newer photo software. Hopefully it is now clearer. You can find that on the original post here.

I also took a photo of some partially completed blocks which I think will help too:

Click the photo to see it larger in the photo viewer.

Here is a little more information on the stitching order:

1. The two halves are pieced separately as far as you see here, then joined before the final pieces are added. You can see one half in the photo on the right. Those sections are pieced starting with the light orange point in the middle, and working out, ending with the yellow point. The long blue piece beside the yellow point is the one I make a template for, because it is sewn first to the light orange fabric, and then flipped up so that the yellow piece can then be sewn to it.
2. When the two sides are done this far, they are sewn together. On the left you can see the block back with the seam right up the middle. On these blocks the excess fabric along the sides has already been trimmed away.
3. The next step will be to applique the pie piece at the bottom. On my block this is the white fabric.
4. Finally, I add the border pieces, which in my block are light green. 

Here again is my test block, all finished. 

I am still not completely decided on how to do the applique. I need to spend one more day experimenting, and then I will be ready to finalize it all. On the test block here I used Beth Ferrier's turned edge machine applique method. I will not be doing the final quilt that way, though. It will be fused instead, with the edges finished either by machine satin stitch or by hand. 

I hope that sheds more light on things! Please leave any additional questions in the comments. Happy sewing!

Related Posts

 Paper Piecing Sedona Star Month 2, Part 1

 More Month 2 information

One Year Blogoversary

Technically, it was one year yesterday, but close enough! The photo here is from our Christmas tree. I just managed this one shot today before the clouds rolled in.

My wrist situation is somewhat better, but not 100%. I've been doing some re-evaluating of my stitching activities as a result! With the blogoversary, the end of the calendar year, and the injury, it seems an appropriate time to consider what's been working and what hasn't.

Working

1. Blogging in general. I enjoy writing about my creative process, and crafting a post about a project is almost as much fun as the project itself.
2. Blogging community. I've loved making all my new blogging friends, and I love how we all inspire each other. And, I really love all the encouraging comments!
3. Blogging as a design tool. This has been an unexpected benefit of my blog. Like a quilter's reducing glass, the blog lets me step back from a project and evaluate it more impartially. I think several improvements have been implemented as a result!

Not Working

1. Book Reviews. The book reviews are a lot of work, and while they do seem to bring in traffic, I'm not sure it is the right traffic. Going forward, I'm only going to review books that have made a difference to my work. Plus, the affiliate program with The Book Depository has not been successful, so I'll be removing those links soon too.
2. BOMs and Quilt Alongs. I started this blog to follow my progress on the 2012 TQS BOM Sedona Star. I love the design, and I'm still going to finish it, but I've learned that I need to get my head around the whole project first, before I can really get started. All those waffling posts at the beginning of the year would have been avoided if I could just have read all the instructions at once. I think BOMs are a great way to produce a really spectacular quilt, but from now on I'll be waiting until the whole thing is available before I decide whether to make it.
3. Motivation. I have to say that I did think that blogging would shame me into finishing more projects, but apparently I am shameless! From now on I will be giving priority to inspiration, rather than motivation.

Unfortunately, CQJP 2013 is going to be a casualty of my dodgy wrist. It will be too much extra hand sewing, so I'll be bowing out before it begins. Maybe next year! In any case, spending more time on the sewing machine instead will be beneficial to many other projects.

To wrap it up, I want to send out hugs and a big THANK YOU to everyone who has supported my blog this year. So many people have been so open, helpful and supportive, and I really appreciate it. I can't wait to see what the next year will bring!

The Red Centre - Month 9

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks! My apologies, but I think you'll find the wait was worth it today. Here are the latest photos of Valerie Giles' Australian Aboriginal version of Sedona Star. Valerie has approached the applique months in a completely different way:

Wombat

I love that background fabric! I asked Valerie how she made these. She tells me that she started with a chalk outline on black fabric, and then fused the patches of Aboriginal fabrics onto that. Isn't it great the way she maintained the continuity of the fabric pattern across the different patches? On the wombat the fused patches were finished with a hand blanket stitch, but on some of the others she did a machine satin stitch with variegated thread:

Koala

Then the black background was embellished by hand with running stitch, back stitch and "many, many French knots" in No. 5 perle cotton. The whole applique was then stitched to the background with a machine satin stitch in black thread.

I really love these, and I think it would be fairly easy to apply this technique to other shapes. Some of the animals are adapted from a book by Julie McKenzie, and some are Valerie's own design.

So here's the whole quilt all the way through Month 9:

The Red Centre

It's looking great. Thanks so much, Valerie, for sharing your work!


Related Posts:

Click here to read last February's post about Valerie's inspiration for her version of Sedona Star

And click here to read about the original Sedona Star designer Sarah Vedeler's inspiration!

What Happened to Sedona Star?

Some of you may be wondering what has happened with my Sedona Star project.  The truth is that it is not at all forgotton.  In fact, I am looking at this pile of half done blocks and templates every day!

Every time I sew I have to move this pile off my sewing table, so believe me, the project is still top-of-mind for me!  In the pile you can see:

• Some of the Month 5 units, still in their baggie,
• Some fused practice circles, which I probably could throw out now,
• Fabric strips and templates for my remaining Month 2 paper-pieced blocks,
• The assembled ring template for Month 1, which I am going to redo with different colours,
• The paper original for Month 2, which I basically use as a "tray" to move it all neatly.

It has been like this since at least June, maybe longer.

But, while it wasn't sewing, I have done some more planning on Sedona Star this week.  Here's my test modification to Month 6:

I always felt that the applique blocks looked a little crowded, to my eye at least.  And I know that my satin stitch is going to make them a little bigger.  So my idea was to use my photocopier to shrink the appliques.  Here I cut out the middle of the template, copied it at 95%, and laid out the shapes in the original sized frame.  I am quite pleased with the result!  It is a subtle modification, but to me it feels more relaxed.

My plan is to set up the blocks with the paper-pieced borders first, and then just lay out the applique shapes by eye and fuse them all down.  This is one time when my low tech sewing room will probably make my life easier!  It is nice to have that flexibility sometimes.

Another Dead End on Sedona Star

There are now some 800 quilt blogs that claim to have taken the "process pledge," where they commit to showing their works in process and occasional failures as well as completed quilts.  Are they all doing that?  I'm not sure, I haven't surveyed them all.  But I doubt it.  I am not even sure that people want to read all that.

But, loyal readers, you all know that I am now about 20 posts in on Sedona Star, and it has been all process and no completion, so I should probably add my blog to that list!  Today I have yet another dead end to share on Sedona Star:

These are some 1.25" practice dots (from Months 1 and 2) that I set up a while ago to practice my machine satin stitch.  Then back in May I thought it would be a great idea to do all the seam treatments by hand in chunky perle cottons.  This is the result.  Not what I was hoping for at all!

The dot on the left was embellished with #5 perle cotton, and the one on the right used #8.  The purpose of the experiment was to try out the template I made to mark out the star shape in the embroidery.  You can still see the white pencil dots.  But, I learned right away that it is impossible to get the needle threaded with the #5 perle through the fusible-backed applique!

I was just able to sew the #8 through the fusible, but it put a lot of strain on my hands.  And frankly, I am not happy with the result.  I could monkey around with the fusible and cut away the centres before I fuse them to the fabric so that only the edges are fused, but I just don't think it will be worth it.  The edges of the applique still show through the perle embroidery, and I really don't like that.

At one point I had considered combining machine and hand embroidery, but now I think I'll just stick with machine satin stitch on all the applique and leave it at that.  And the hand quilting plan is out the window too.

So for now, this really is the last Sedona Star post until the air conditioning gets turned off in the fall.  Now that all the indecision is (hopefully) behind me, I'm hoping that the months will fall like dominos once I get started again.  Fingers crossed!

Taking Stock on Sedona Star

This weekend I was feeling like things were finally starting to motor along on Sedona Star.  Maybe I will actually catch up this month, I thought!  LOL.  I made a quick list of everything left to do:

Will I catch up this month?  Probably not.  But the list is actually kind of amusing, so I thought I'd share it!

Mail Call

Are you familiar with "haul videos" on YouTube where people share the results of their shopping trips?  It kind of felt like that around here today, so here's my version!

I had all kinds of goodies in the mail today.  From Stitchin' Heaven, the foundation papers and instructions for Judy Niemeyer's Prairie Star:

The people at Stitchin' Heaven are super nice.  I called them right at closing time because I always get the time zone in Texas wrong, but they very kindly stayed and answered all my questions, and then sent this out for me the next day.  I love their newsletter too!  Now that I am such a paper piecing fan I had to try this quilt.  It will be for my dad, but in different colours, which I still have to work out.  It will be a few months before I get started on this.

And for the other kind of paper piecing, the pieces for my Botanic Roses quilt arrived today from Paper Pieces:

I also ordered these huge 3" hexagons (6" across) for yet another project:

The 1/2" hexagons are beside them so you can see the scale.  The customer service from Paper Pieces has also been excellent.  They gave me the heavily discounted sale price on the large hexagons even though I placed the order before the sale started.  I think that is really admirable, and I am planning another order from them soon!

From Nordic Needle I received my perle cottons for Sedona Star:

I had a weird exchange with Nordic Needle this time, which I'm hoping was just an aberration, because they've always been good in the past.  These are Size 8 DMC perle cottons, which were actually finer than I expected.  They will probably be excellent for quilting, but I am considering ordering some of the heavier ones for the seam treatments and embroidery.  I really want something chunky that will show up well on the quilt.

And to top it all off, my issue of Inspirations 74 arrived today:

As you can imagine, I haven't had time to even open it up yet!  But, I think this will all keep me busy for a while!

First Month 5 Ring

I have been very productive, but it has largely been more of the same, so there hasn't been much to show.  All my Sedona Star Month 3 and Month 4 rings are complete, and I've started on the paper piecing for Month 2.  The templates and fabric strips for Month 2 have been sitting on my sewing table for over a month, and I have to move them every time I sew, so I am really looking forward to getting them done and out of the way!

Yesterday we had a free sewing day at my guild Rouge Valley, and I finished a lot of the units for Month 5.  This morning I put the first ring together:

I did manage to fix my wobbly Month 4 a couple of days ago, it is now completely flat.  So once again I was feeling confident this morning as put together this ring.  And sure enough, it has a wobble too!  But I don't think it is so bad that I have to redo anything.  The overall size is just a smidgen small, so it will fit into the outer template fine.  I am finding that it is so important to stay focused on this quilt!

All these points are supposed to be the same size.  The reason the light yellow ones look longer is due to the way the seam allowances are pressed.  I am pretty sure it will look fine once it is sewn into the outer block.

I really love all the fine sharp points on this block.  And I realized when I was cutting the fabrics that this time I actually followed the instructions for the colour placement!  You won't see that very often on this quilt.  Anyway, there is still lots to do.  Happy sewing!

New Direction

I apologize for the radio silence that's been going on here for a while now.  Recently I've been doing a lot more thinking than sewing!  And a bit of experimenting:

As I mentioned a while ago, I was very inspired by Sandy Lawrence's fusible appliqued and machine embroidered quilt.  I particularly liked the way the thread was a design feature of the quilt.  And I really loved the way she used more than one colour on the edges of the appliques.

I, however, do not have an embroidery machine, or even many decorative stitches.  But I did think that with careful sewing I would still be able to get some interesting multicolour effects.  You can see that I had mixed success with that!  There are some good bits, but there is no room for error.  This is all 50 wt thread, and my plan was to use 30 wt for the "blanket" stitches so they would show up more.  But it turned out that my local quilt store was closed for the Creativ Festival the day I went to buy the 30 wt thread.  So I had more time to think!

The other thing I've been investigating is quilting techniques for both machine and hand.  I came across this website where she hand quilts big stitches with pretty perle cotton thread.  I've seen this before, but this time, with Sedona Star on my mind, the whole thing instantly jelled into a plan.  I can do both the seam treatments AND the quilting with some nice colourful perle cottons!  My sewing machine does a decent satin stitch, so I will start by satin stitching all the appliques, and then embellish them by hand.  It will also allow me to throw in a little embroidery here and there within the shapes as well.

I am VERY excited about this plan!  I can finally see how the whole thing is going to come together.  And I am pretty sure this will be a unique approach!  Right now I am waiting for my threads to arrive, but there is plenty of piecing to do in the meantime.  Happy sewing!

Sedona Star Month 3

No, I haven't fixed my wobbly Month 4 ring from last week yet.  I decided it would be better to regroup on something easier, and then go back to it.  So, I've had a very satisfying day doing my first ring from Month 3:

I also put together all my Month 2 templates, so they are ready for paper piecing too.  A couple of weeks ago I said I was going to applique the Month 2 points.  But, when I pulled out my paper-pieced practice block I still really liked it.  With the fusible applique my background fabric would show through.  Plus, all these sunflower blocks are paper pieced, so it will be more consistent to paper piece the points in Month 2 as well.  So, that's what I'll do!


Related posts:

Sedona Star Month 4

Designing the sunflower blocks

Month 4 Disaster!

I definitely should have stayed in bed this morning.  But instead, I spent the morning merrily working on the last ring for Sedona Star Month 4, congratulating myself the whole time because I felt I had really mastered it.  I got it all together and this was the result:

The first two were perfect!  What happened with this one?

I checked my seams again with pins at the corners, and found that even though I was right on the lines, several of the corners were off by about 1/16".  And because they were always off in the same direction, it added up.  Overall, the size of the circle is 9.75" instead of 10".  And you can see how wobbly it is.

So for the rest of the afternoon it looks like my seam ripper will be busy.  Without fail this month, every time I let my mind wander or I get cocky, I make a mistake.  It really requires complete focus.

Oh, well, it is fixable. 

Plus, halfway through the morning, a heavy painting spontaneously fell off a shelf and broke my beloved Enso meditation timer/alarm clock.  So that's going to be expensive to replace.

What a day!

Finished Month 4 Ring

Hi!  Just a quick post today.  Here is the first completed ring for Sedona Star Month 4.  The inside edge is a little wobbly, but hopefully the applique centre will still go on smoothly.  The green fabric is Kaffe Fassett's Aboriginal Dots in Forest.  Two more to go!

Starting to Piece Month 4

As promised, I got a decent start on the Month 4 piecing for Sedona Star yesterday.  It is pretty painstaking work!  Yesterday morning I checked the Show & Tell section at The Quilt Show to see how people are doing with Month 4.  Only one person was finished!  So I had a feeling this month would be trickier.  Usually there would be four or five people done after the first week.  But maybe enthusiasm wanes after the first couple of months too.

My modifications to the template went smoothly, and they didn't seem to add to the difficulty at all:

You can see that I drew in the 1/4 inch shadow on all the templates.  I used 1/8 seam allowances on all the internal seams, which turned out to be no problem at all.  Even though the darker orange pieces would finish small, I still cut the fabric 1 1/2 inch wide so I would have somewhere to put the pins.  You can see that I have also been staystitching the side seams, which gives me one less thing to worry about with the assembly.

The assembly of the sub-units is definitely the biggest challenge:

By the end of the day I had sewn together seven, and I had to redo a seam twice.  Because joining the units is the trickiest part, I am forcing myself to add each unit to the whole as I go.  That way I will not be stuck with the worst part at the end.

You probably realize that I have skipped over Month 3.  I am looking forward to going back to it, because I think it will be a doddle compared to Month 4!  It is fun to see how the designer Sarah Vedeler is increasing the challenge each month.  We will all be Mariner's Compass masters after this!

Overall, I am very happy with how it is going.  It is becoming clear that once again The Quilt Show BOM is going to be impressive.  When you see how all the details keep building month after month, it becomes a very satisfying thing.  Onwards and upwards!

Amping Up the Mariner's Compass Blocks

Back in December, my inspiration for my colourway of Sedona Star started with the quilt Paradise in the Garden by Jean Wells.  I have loved that quilt ever since I first saw it!  Jean took New York Beauty blocks and made them into sunflowers, and I thought I could do the same thing with the Mariner's Compass blocks in Sedona Star.  There are three different Mariner's Compass blocks in the quilt, each done three times, for a total of nine blocks.

In my first plan for how to colour those blocks I only used two colours of yellow for the "petals."  I have been thinking for some time now, though, that this will be too repetitive.  I decided to use three colours instead, and to play up the differences between the three variations that Sedona Star designer Sarah Vedeler created.  But, I still wanted to keep them looking like flowers.  I decided the best way to meet all my goals would be to add some secondary piecing to the blocks.  For Month 4, I am going to add a 1/4 inch "shadow" to the lower layer of petals:

I haven't tried this with the fabric yet!  But I think it will be doable with a 1/8 inch seam allowance.  If I have to I'll increase the shadow to 3/8 inch.  All the photos today are of enlargements of the uncoloured pdf file that Sarah provided in December, which I coloured with my trusty crayons.

On a side note, do you find that you use the same colours over and over?  I haven't pulled out my crayons in years, and I found that the colours I needed for these blocks were the ones I'd used the most!  You can probably see the resemblance with my profile photo too.

Anyway, I was very happy with how this one looked, so it was on to Month 3.  My first thought was to repeat the 1/4 inch shadow (the new one is on the right):

But, I didn't think that had enough punch.  My second try:

That's pretty good, I thought, but I also wanted to see what would happen if I just widened the shadow from the first try:

This one was too "whirly" for my taste, and not flowery, so the second one is the winner.  For the last one, Month 5, I first tried the same 1/4 inch shadow as Month 4:

Again, I felt that things were getting repetitive.  I wondered what would happen if I didn't add a shadow to this month, and just changed the colours of the back petals:

Winner!  Now when I look at all three variations together, they look unified yet distinct:

Let's see how they look with my fabrics!  I still haven't got my iron, but I'm thinking that now that I've decided to fuse the applique on Month 2 instead of paper piecing the blocks, a regular iron will do the job.  I'll just find the iron with the slowest auto shut off available and be done with it.


Related Post:

Choosing colours for Sedona Star

Time to Get Over Myself

Do you know that I have now done 15 posts about Sedona Star, and I have yet to completely finish any of the months?  The sticking point all along has been the fusible applique.  Well, I am over it!  And I have this brilliant quilt to thank:

Go! Bedazzled

Isn't it beautiful?  This was made by Sandy Lawrence of Phoenix, AZ.  It is another Sarah Vedeler design.  Sandy was lucky enough to take a class with Sarah when she made this quilt, and another class with Diane Gaudynski for the quilting!  As you can see by the ribbons, the quilt won First Place for Machine Embroidery and Best of Show at the Arizona Quilter's Guild show in 2012.  No surprise!  You can click the photo to see it larger.

What I really love about this quilt, and what has finally converted me, is the way Sandy has made the machine embroidery into a separate design element of the quilt.  The embroidery is not just a way to hold the appliques down.  For instance, most of the hits of turquoise that you see in the quilt are thread.  Imagine the quilt without it!  I love the Southwest colours she has used.  If you look at the large photo, you can see areas where more than one colour of thread was used around the edges of the appliques.  Sandy has also done embroidery within the shapes. 

There are so many great ideas here!  Even with my basic machine I can think of some interesting combinations to try.  Now I am so keen to get started again!  Alas, I am still waiting for my new iron, so it may still be a while.

Now it looks like I won't be paper piecing Month 2 after all!  But I'm still glad I did it, because it made me very aware of how the dark fabrics show through the light appliques.  I will have to do some careful trimming, I think.

Sandy, thanks so much for the photo, and all the inspiration too!


Related Posts:

Paper pieced practice block

Adjusting the template for paper piecing

Paper Piecing Sedona Star Month 2

If you're wondering where I posted my picture of my completed Month 1 blocks, the answer is that they aren't finished yet!  I am still experimenting with my turned applique by machine technique.  In the mean time, I went ahead with paper piecing Month 2, and showed my practice block yesterday.  The practice block was made with the real fabrics, so you can see where I am going with it.

As I promised yesterday, here is how I altered the Month 2 template to accomodate paper piecing:

I left the image fairly large, so if you click the photo you can see all the details.  Here's a description of what I did:

1. I assembled the template from plain copy paper and drew on all my revisions.  Then I copy each quadrant onto the Ricky Tims' Stable Stuff.  The edges were trimmed down so that each side, including the centre seam, fits onto just two pages.
2. I pieced it in two sub-units, sewed the centre seam, and then added the appliques and outer border.  You can see that I extended one side of the centre point both up and down.  I am indebted to TQS member FLAero52 for this idea.  She did it slightly differently, but the sub-unit idea is key.  I added a cutting line on either side of the seam, mainly to remind me that it IS the seam.
3. I extended the corners of the grey background grid out to the edges, and also added a trim line parallel to the grid on all four sides.  This is to speed the assembly of the templates.  I trim the copies at the trim line, butt the edges against my Olfa mat, and line up the corner extensions at the 0" and 16" marks on the mat.  Then I know for sure that the assembled template is exactly to scale. 
4. I also added some small lines across the seam line at precise right angles to serve as pin markings when I sew the centre seam.  That seam has to be dead on, or the final shape of the block may be distorted.
5. The background pieces 4a and 4b are an awkward shape.  Rather than using a very large rectangle and then cutting away most of the fabric, I traced the shapes onto wax paper (freezer paper) to use as pattern pieces.  This allows me to cut the angle for the seam so that the fabric will flip up exactly into the right position.  Yes, it IS tricky.  But it works great once you get it.  Please let me know in the comments if you want to see a picture, and I will take one once I get going again.

I ordered this cute iron from Keepsake Quilting today, and the pressing surface too.  With my small sewing space, I think it will be a better solution than a full size iron.  Maybe there was a silver lining to my misadventure yesterday!

Sedona Star Month 2

Since December, when I decided to commit to the TQS 2012 BOM, Sedona Star, I have been debating how to handle the points in the Month 2 blocks:

The instructions call for raw edge, fusible applique, but I don't much like raw edges, or fusibles either.  My applique plan for the quilt has been to use Beth Ferrier's technique for turned applique by machine.  I have a comprehensive review of that technique coming up! 

The centre point on the Month 2 block is very sharp, though.  I know I could do it by hand, because you would sew one side first, and then stuff all the seam allowances against it as you stitched the second side.  But there are nine large blocks!  I thought about machine sewing part of the point and hand sewing just the end, but it seemed very complicated.

I briefly considered converting the block to paper piecing, but I saw problems with that.  However, one of the other TQS members, FLAero52, did it, so I was inspired to try too.  It is NOT EASIER.  There is a lot to figure out, and I did it a little differently than FLAero52.  Here is my practice block:

There are a few problems with it, but they are fixable, so this is how I'm going to proceed. I am very happy with the points.  Another benefit of paper piecing is that the dark blue background fabric won't show through the light appliques.  I love that fabric - it's actually a blender from the Elvis on Tour collection!  The white dots are spotlights.  :)

I'll show you how I revised the template to accomodate paper piecing tomorrow.  For now, though, here's some of the problems that I need to address:

• My white fabric applique at the base is fairly sheer, and the yellow and orange fabrics show through, so I need to trim the seam allowances from the points.  Also, the "Template F" lettering on the template shows through, so I will have to mask that from future copies.  The placement of that applique is also a little off, but that is easily corrected next time.
• You can see a dark shadow on the right side of the top point.  That is the blue fabric showing through the light green, where it got caught in the centre seam.  I will have to trim those blue seam allowances before I sew the two sub-units together.
• The yellow fabric from the centre point also goes too far up in the centre seam, which adds bulk and which will make it hard to applique the final dot.  I just have to trim it before I stitch the seam.
• I used my Clover plastic pressing tool to press the seams, but for this block I think a hot iron will be better.  The long background pieces are a little loose, and so are the long light green pieces.  And what did I do today?  I broke my iron!!  Disaster!!  So it will be a few days before you see any more of these.

Sedona Star Month 1 Points

After so much time at the sewing machine over the past few days, my back was really complaining, so I've been taking it slower again.  I've been doing the log cabin points a few at a time:

Four more to go!  You'll be seeing a lot more of these particular fabrics as the quilt progresses.  An unexpected benefit of using solid fabrics is that there is no wrong side, which makes the paper piecing even easier.  I hope, though, that it does not make me sloppy once I progress to prints later in the quilt.

It's been really fun so far.  The finished points have a satisfying weight to them, with the fairly thick Kaufman Kona Solid fabric, and the Ricky Tims Stable Stuff on the back.  I've been using 1/4" seams too.  The instructions call for 1/8" seams, but as a new paper piecer I just didn't feel comfortable with that.  If I pay for it later, so be it.

Many people have also mentioned the somewhat frugal cutting instructions for the quilt.  Because I was planning to use a wider seam allowance, I just measured the widths right off the template.  I ended up adding 1/4" to the width, and about 1/2" to the length for these pieces - it may have been more for some of the others.  I have lots of fabric, so I am not worried about running out!

Beginning to Paper Piece Sedona Star

I was very excited to actually start sewing Sedona Star!  I began with the ring on Month 1, because that looked the easiest to me:

The light colour here is actually this light purple fabric.  The camera made it blue.  But the piecing went really well.  I very nearly sewed the two ends wrong sides together, even after reminding myself about it!  But fortunately I realized my mistake before actually sewing it.  I was so encouraged by this initial success that I moved on to the centre star:

I realized a few things when I was about halfway through this.  The first was that my colour scheme is not going to leave me any room for error!  I deliberately chose the high contrast scheme to show off the more difficult parts of the quilt.  I wasn't thinking though, that it meant I am going to have to do those parts really well.  Anyway, so far, so good.  I'll have to be super careful with those points when I sew the two circles together.

The second issue is that the dark fabrics really show lint!  I can see that this is going to be a problem for the lifetime of the quilt.  It looks much worse in the photo because the flash picked out the light particles.  I wondered where all that lint was coming from, and I realized that it is from the Ricky Tims Stable Stuff.  It is shedding tiny, shiny, polyester fibres as I work with it.

On the TQS forum Margo suggested that I can wash the finished flimsy to remove all the Stable Stuff before I quilt it.  Now that I've seen how these fibres stick to the fabric, I don't think that will be an option.  For now, I'll just use a good lint roller before I take any final photos!

Otherwise, though, the Stable Stuff is a dream to work with.  It is much easier to use for paper piecing than the vellum was.  It makes a very clean fold when you are cutting the seam allowance.  The vellum didn't always want to fold along the line, but with the Stable Stuff there is no problem.  And because the Stable Stuff is more like Pellon interfacing, it doesn't remember all the fold lines, so you can wrinkle it up all over and it still goes back to lying flat when you're done.

When I lay the two parts together, it looks like this:

My intention with the centre of the quilt was to keep it simple, and I am satisfied with the result so far.  The main focus of the quilt will be the applique blocks we're doing this summer, so I didn't want to do too much here.  I'll show you one or two of the log cabin points tomorrow, and then it'll be on to the applique circles!