Sunday, February 15, 2015

Cutting Edges

I spent time in the front garden today, watering, weeding, amending the soil, pruning, laying rock, and checking out the water fall feature.  I am going to leave it on the sidewalk as a way to monitor its operation. The birds seem to enjoy what I am doing out there and soon enough they will be building nests. I want to get all the gardens cleaned up from the Winter that we never had in case it rains or in case it turns cold again.

Inside, my quilting efforts were all about cutting. The little 6" block pattern for the Calico Spool needed to be fussy cut using that cute baby-grrrl pink fabric. I am not sure this is what my partner wants. Cute, however, is what she will get. There are five pieces to the spool; four half square triangles (HST) and the middle section which makes up the spool look. It took me a bit of time to cut them so they fit together. Fussy cutting is an art that is all about placement.

Then, I turned my attention back to paper piecing cats and started cutting the first two pieces of each part of the 11 blocks for row 12. Some start pieces with the black fabric, and some start with the batik. Therefore, its 22 pieces of black and 22 pieces of batik, and then the first stitches joining them. Pinning, pressing, piecing. I think its getting easier to do them backwards and upside down. Also, there seems to be less waste. 

While pictures help, I guess I would rather wait to finish than to show cut by cut and seam by seam. Quilting is more about the process, even though results also make a difference. Its a slow process which is why my work isn't as fast as a factory sweat shop might be. 

One last thing I was cutting were the postage stamps from the swaps. I am not a stamp collector, but early on, I got a postcard from one of my partners using cancelled stamps glued together in rows and cut on a diagonal. She just glued them onto card stock and cut it to a 4 x 6 standard postcard size. It was really creative and simple to recycle them for someone else to enjoy them before they get tossed.





With all my projects, as I finish them, I will take pictures. 


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