Back to Work on Floral Pinwheels

     Not much sewing has gone on at my home recently while I had company. Yesterday I finished the doll dress my niece sewed.  I hemmed, added buttons and sewed Velcro on for the back closure.  It is cute.

   This week has been the one week each month when I have 2 charity / comfort quilt sew days – one for guild and one for church.  Yesterday at church Jan laid out her string blocks.  We all have fallen in love with strings.  

   Finally I pulled the floral pinwheel top back out and added breaker borders around the appliqué border.  Because it is so large I needed to go to a large room at church to lay out the rest of the pinwheels.  I don’t have room at home to lay them out to see them all at one time.  Because of it’s size it is also difficult to take a good photo.  This photo is little distorted.  It really is square.  I now have the top and bottom rows of outer pinwheels sewn on and tonight I might get some of the sides sewn together.   I am pleased with how it is coming together. 

Teaching Niece

   Yesterday I worked with my niece to sew her first doll dress.  I learned when giving instructions for cutting out the pattern pieces, I need to make it clear that you DON'T cut on the line with an edge on the fold. Other than that minor problem, the lesson went well. 

Here the dress is almost finished.

Working on a UFO

    I have not done much sewing recently because of family events.  Saturday was a nephew's wedding.  Today I found a little time.

   Normally I have fabric and sewing things throughout my house.  Because company was coming for a couple of days, I cleared my large cutting mat off the dining room table.  That is where I like to lay out larger projects to cut borders.  Because it was put away I could not work on the borders for the floral pinwheel quilt today.  So what to do while waiting on company to arrive? I found a box containing a UFO project that I adopted. 

      It has hundreds of pieces for flying geese using the “No Waste Method for Making Flying Geese Units”.  If you have never tried it, the following link will download a pdf with directions:

  http://www.patchpieces.com/files/flyinggeese.pdf

Or you can find the link here:  http://www.patchpieces.com/sharingpatch.html   

This also has good directions.  http://quilting.about.com/od/quiltpatternsprojects/ss/No-Waste-Flying-Geese-Quilt-Pattern_2.htm 

After company leaves, this UFO will go back on the shelf, but it is further along. 

Sew Day at Church

     We had a great group at church to sew today and got a lot done.  Jan and Gail were quilting with the walking foot each on their own projects.  Beverley was cutting strips for her next string quilt and Jan showed off her string blocks. 

They are lovely.  I can't wait until I get to work on mine but I have to finish other quilts first.

Bonnie, Joan and I worked on adding borders to our various projects.  We had a green and brown strip pieced top that we thought could use a border so I pulled a Western geometric print from our stash to add as a border and here is the pieced top. 

Then I pulled a group of fabric from our donated stash for a “Trip Around the World”.  Here is what I pulled. 

Appliqué Border Options

     The vines and leaves are all machine appliquéd.  Before I sew them on, I wanted to try out a couple of options.  The original pattern has the vines growing from 2 corners only like this. 

I wanted to see what it would look like with a vine growing from each corner so here it is laid out. 

I think I like the designer’s suggestion better.  Which do you like? 

    This morning reading Leigh’s blog ( http://leedledeedlequilts.blogspot.com/ ) started me thinking about my UFOs.  With our guild challenge last year, I finished many UFOs; more than I would have without the challenge.  Leigh says she has trouble finishing things.  I finish many quilts but I also have many unfinished.  Sometimes when I have a big project like the King size floral pinwheel quilt I am working on, I get tired of working on the same thing every day and I need something different.  That is one reason I enjoy charity sew days because I can work on a different project and yet I am doing something useful.  

Two Side Borders Appliqued

      Today was the first day this week that I worked on a quilting project.  I am making myself a dressy white skirt and I hemmed some pants for my brother.  After helping Mother with breakfast, I have been a volunteer at my church Vacation Bible School.  It has been several years since I helped and decided to this year.  I assisted in the craft room, which was fun.

     
      A few days ago I bought a great green thread to use for the machine appliqué.  It is Mettler silk-finish cotton.  I am doing a narrow blanket stitch (1.5 wide). This afternoon I finished stitching all the leaves and vines on the 2 pieces of side border.  Here is a close up.  I’ll take another photo to post after I sew these on.   I am considering adding leaf veins as part of the quilting.