WIP Wednesday

I’ve been hard at work over the last several days on the first of the many projects on my plate.

Last Thursday after Emma went to bed, I cut out all the pieces for my modern flag quilt — a pattern I’m testing for Rebel Craft Media. I’m using Cotton + Steel basics for the red stripes, blue star backgrounds, and about half of the whites. The other half of my whites are from a low volume bundle I bought to split between this and another project. It’ll be a slightly non-traditional flag, more pinkish orange and teal than red and blue, but I’m excited to see it come together.

I spent time last Friday and Saturday paper piecing stars. There are 24 of them in the quilt, and I did 8 in those 2 days. They took more time than I anticipated, partly because I made the first few one-by-one (instead of chain piecing when possible) to make sure I was getting them right. It’s a good thing I did, because I also discovered a slight error in the template along the way.

In the photo above, the stack on the right was made from the original pattern and it’s kind of hard to see, but the lower left corner is off — when the blocks are joined together, those corners are going to get “eaten” in the seam allowance. I tried several different tweaks before deciding to double check the pattern, and when I did, I found that the pattern itself was slightly off. I guess that’s why they need people like me to test it, right?

I fixed it myself (it’s nice to have some Illustrator skills!) and made the star on the left. Ahh! No more will-be-eaten star points.

On Monday night, I decided to take a break from the stars and get started on the other part of the pattern, the Scrappy USA Pillow. I’ve never made a quilted pillow before so it should be fun. As I read through the pattern though, I discovered that the cutting instructions didn’t totally sync up with the layout diagram and materials list — another perfect example of why patterns need to be tested before they’re sold! I sent off an email with a few questions yesterday and am expecting clarification today.

Last night I made the handful of half square triangles I needed, laid out all my little squares, and started piecing! As you can see, I decided to do something a little different with the colors — it’s all Cotton + Steel fabric again, this time from the new black and white collection. I’m pretty excited about how it looks.

And finally, on Saturday I dropped off my Once Upon a Time sampler — at last! — to be framed. (The photo above is the finished product in all its wrinkled glory after washing it but before pressing.) I made a half-hearted attempt at framing it myself last week, but quickly realized that it was going to be very difficult to do it right, i.e. without it ended up curved or crooked or otherwise distorted. I decided to leave it to the professionals, and it should be ready in a couple weeks!

(Linking up with Freshly Pieced)