CQG Spider Web Quilt -- Day 5 and 6

Day 5:
I know we had some people feeling a little disheartened over how long we've been working on this quilt.

Except, I think this was only our 5th or 6th day of working on it, and at 2-ish hours a meeting, we're actually doing really well. Especially when one of those meetings was only 2 people, and almost everyone is making summer vacation plans to miss other dates before it's finished.

I have enough triangles cut to make one or two more rows of blocks. If I have enough for 2 additional rows, we'll have an extra long twin. (The goal was a full, but I think morale is low enough we'll call it good at a twin...) If I only have enough for one row, I think I'll finish it out with some strip pieces for a header or footer. I'm tempted to border it out all the way around to get a full, but I have enough on my plate I'm not sure that's the wisest course of action.

Truthfully, we are making good progress -- just everyone is tired of it.

I think our next project might need to be something really fast. Maybe disappearing nine-patch blocks in large sizes, or a large paper piece pattern?

It is tiring to work on the same thing twice a month for four months...


Day 6:

In theory, we are done with triangles.

In practice, I think it needs more.

What we have now will cover the top of a twin mattress -- but there's no wrapability in it. That's not what we want.

I can (and probably will) add some borders from the strips we over-cut. But I'm thinking another row and another column of triangle blocks would be nice. That's... a lot to take on by myself in the next couple weeks, but I think it's the right thing to do.

I'm sure the rest of the group would pitch in if I asked, but I'm also sure they'd rather work on piecing the rest of the top.

Basting and Beginning

Despite my whining, I've made progress. In fact, in the length of one nap (thanks Mom!), I managed to baste the quilt and begin quilting it. Hardly worth all the time I spent blowing it off!

It basted quickly -- and I had a good distraction.

If you can't see, it's the new Beauty and the Beast movie -- which I finally managed to watch. I'll keep my opinions there to myself, but it was a good distraction while I was pinning and quilting.

I love the fabric I'm using as the back - Wonderland, Cotton + Steel - and it really shows what I'm doing with the quilting. Wrestling this quilt through the machine has been a frustration, despite it being such a small quilt, but I'm more than halfway done, so I think I can survive the frustration to get the outcome I want.

The Standstill...

Well, first up, the good news.

I made another paper pieced block using a little more orange. I'm not in love with it, but it is a nice one to have on hand in case I need an additional block.

Bluebird pattern by Liljabs via Craftsy

It's a little odd where the head and neck attach; I didn't catch the way it misaligned in time to easily fix it, and I'm not going back now. The 'missing' background piece is there, but mostly hidden in the seam allowance. I thought I put it on properly, but obviously there was an issue. I had removed it once and "fixed" it after an earlier error there (brown instead of background!) so I know this is user error rather than pattern error.

I'd been watching and waiting for another pattern to go up for sale on Craftsy, so I pounced and thought I'd whip it out as my 'last block' before I made myself sit down and baste that other quilt!

This is where it starts being the bad news part.

Firstly, pop over and take a look at what The Cat's Meow pattern should / could look like.

Do not rely on my pictures, because I've made mistake after mistake -- and several changes. I do not recommend doing any of what I've done.

Okay, did you look at it? Such a cool pattern, right!? I love it.

Well, of course I need a smaller block than this finishes at... so I printed it at a 75% scale. Not a great choice. It's not impossible, but not ideal.

I adore that Kate (the pattern maker) included a 'coloring' page that helps plot out what your cat will look like. It was a fun way to begin, and a good way to start planning.

Unfortunately, I really wanted to work with scrap fabrics instead of pulling things from a pile someone else curated. You know, because occasionally I like to challenge myself to take on my weaknesses. This was probably not a good project for me to take on that challenge. It was certainly not a good 'pull' of fabrics.

Here's the first half of the cat and my coloring page:

You might have already noticed my issue. I didn't.

Okay, there are a number of issues -- namely my poor choices of background fabrics and the lack of contrast between the background and the ear fabric -- but the big one is staring right at us. And I missed it. For about a week.

And here's about where I realized my issue. I made the first eye completely wrong! I inverted some of the colors, giving the cat a blue/green pupil in a black eye and black patch, rather than a black pupil, blue/green eye, and black patch! Ooooh, I was so furious with myself for not realizing it.

After properly finishing up the second half of the cat, I started pulling apart the first half to get back to the first eye. I must fix it.

I've only got a little more ripping to do, part of the seam between the orange patch and the eye, then disconnecting the eye from the remainder of the black (streaky) patch. I'll then re-do both the eye (one section) and the tiny black and white section nearest to it -- not because there's an issue with the second section, but because I don't think I can remove it in a salvageable piece. Also, I'd rather remake than continue to seam rip... Honestly, I very nearly just remade the entire first half rather than pick it all apart. But, I'm hopeful I can get this apart, fixed, and back together.

I just don't want to pick again.

But if I'm not picking, I'd better be basting.

Uuuuugh.

Thus, the standstill.

The Prayer Quilt (2)

I've hardly heard from anyone else who is working on this quilt, but I hope they're having as much fun coming up with things as I've been having!

In fact, I've been enjoying myself so much I'm having a very hard time feeling like I should stop -- though obviously if I keep going, some of the blocks will not be used for her quilt.

After my happy little fox and sloth blocks, I turned my attention in a different direction:

I've been watching these adorable snails pop up in my Instagram feed for ages -- and as soon as I saw this adorable pink fabric, I knew I wanted to make a snail with it.

Because I had to shrink the pattern slightly to make it fit in my requirements (and then it looks like I had room after all, as you'll see in a moment), my little snail wound up a little bit... wonkier than intended. But still cute!

The tail seems out of proportion with what I've seen on other snails, but I checked and double checked my pattern and it says I did it right... I wish the itty bitty triangle on the head had turned out the same size as the other (it should have, it was when I started) but I'm not undoing any of it. I say 'she' is cute and I'm good with it.

But yeah, look at that border I added at the tail end, I think I could have not shrunk any measurements and wound up okay.

After that, it was back to foundation paper piecing. And another block that turned out adorable, but was a pain to get there!

I'm the first to say, it's adorable. I love it, I really do. But I did not think I was going to make it through this pattern. If it had been a free pattern, I would have quit before I finished the second unit. But, I pushed through and I'm glad I did. The hardest part was deciding whether I wanted to use the floral pattern fabric for the body or the ears. She was initially going to be dots all over, but I learned with the fox that the dots are far enough apart they don't always show up, and I had two votes for the patterned body. They were right.

Again, since I shrunk the pattern to ensure all of the animal would fit in the block, I had to add a little bit of a border.

Much of this border will be lost when I add the sash, but I'm loving the way it really pops. And I will have some room to add a name or other message if I choose to do so. I've still got to figure out a way to do that...

So, here are my four blocks (so far) together.

I'm thinking the fox looks lonely in orange, so I might make another with more orange/red tones to see if that should swap in for one of them (unfortunately, probably the snail). I might also just wait until I see what everyone else has done. And I might just keep picking away at free patterns until I have dozens of these blocks and make something for myself! (Or my kid!)

I'm having a blast. And it lets me ignore basting on that other quilt shown above... even though I really need to swap back to it tomorrow. I've got the back made and I think I know how I'm quilting (just need to decide on soft gray thread vs barely pink). And then baste it. Ugh.