Summer Quilt Day

Yesterday was the semi-annual quilt day at Nancy's church. This is my third time going, and so it's my third small quilt. I originally picked the smaller sized quilt projects feeling that they were more manageable and knowing that I could do the actual quilting myself. Of course, I love complicated/visually interesting patterns, so that means teeny tiny pieces. Lots of cutting, lots of sewing and ripping out and resewing so that that points (sort of) line up. One quilter came up to me late in the day as I was fussing over some little triangles and said, "your work is....so....(insert international hand gesture for 'fussing over little triangles')" and I replied: "....anal?" I've graduated to referring to myself with the slightly less graphic "OCD," but it's all the same no matter how you dress it up. So here's my latest fuss:I'm pleased with the balance between the neutral linen (I used the tea stained linen that I made for Sophie's present - huh, which I still haven't posted in its finished state yet). I hemmed and hawed quite a bit over whether to organize the colors to form concentric rings, or to make it more random-seeming (there is a pattern there, FYI!) and I'm happy with the choice to mix the colors up. I really made this on the fly, so I wasn't too keen on the yellow at first. I had brought my second quilt and proceeded to carry out the tedious task of ripping out the quilting I had started and botched (lesson learned: cut the backing fabric AFTER you do the quilting, and don't get too crazy with tight quilting patterns on small quilts because it's not necessary - oh, and baste like mad so that your fabric doesn't fold over and pucker as you go!) but that was soon driving me nutso. I had brought this pattern , and then just looked around to see what fabric scraps I had brought. I had another purplish FQ but it wasn't washed and all the others were, so I went for the yellow instead. In the end, that little bit of yellow makes me pretty happy.

I learned a lot this time around. Just from practice and trial and error, some things to remember include:

- when sewing a strip together, start in the center and work your way out.

- measure from the new seam to see where you should stitch to give the square the proper dimensions. Although I take a LOT of time cutting and being really particular about it, my measurements tend to get wonky FAST once I start sewing. And also,

- when leaving quilt day, remember to take your rotary cutter so that you can finish adding the side panels to your quilt top when you get home. Duh.

And a great bonus of quilt day is the door prizes. I have never won, but finally did yesterday and got these fabulous minty-green FQs. They came from one of the quilters who had made up a quilt in this ovarian cancer awareness fabric and as she held it up I thought: man, that mint green is making me happy...and then I got lucky and won some of it. I am especially in love with the left-most print with all of those doodly circles.