Curve It Up is FINSIHED!

YEAH!

Over the winter months many of us participated in Stitched Studio's Curve It Up ruler block of the month.  Well, I challenged myself - it was hard for me in many regards - but it's completely finished ....in thirds.

I had troubles with the blocks squaring to 16 1/2"  One block was 14 1/2" - one of these quilts is basically blocks brought down to this new size.  It did cut considerable borders off the blocks but adding a border to the small block just wouldn't work.  The next quilt is made from 15 1/2" blocks and the last was really close:  16 1/4' blocks.  Since the sizes were all over the scale and I really didn't care for the fabric line I chose, I decided to play and play and learn and learn techniques not yet conquered. 

 Machine quilting is still very new for me.  I've done a few smaller projects but the two techniques I wanted to work on was the machine quilting with my walking foot and the modern quilt as you go method.  Quilting straight lines and even with the curves, as in this quilt, require a series of coffee pots brewing.  OMG, it gets so boring!  So to counteract the drowsiness, I started playing with specialty stitches, see the stars peaking above.  Well, lost a few with the trimming exercise.

 Tensions above and below the throat plate are important....thought I had it figured out until the very last block.  The black thread from below only appeared at the pivot points.  Nothing I tried would fix this "here I am, see me" problem.

 The tacking or star stitch was fun to add the blank spaces.

 Much of my machine quilting on the top side matched the beige fabric.  The gold thread did help this block, but when quilting block by block a sense of continuity began crumbling. 

 Below, I'm playing with the black thread.  Stitch-in-the-ditch was actually fun to do and good practice for a good quilt someday!  The curves in the Dresden pattern below was SITD/

The next blog will talk a bit about my QAYG method.

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg was very interesting since I had 25+ years in business and industry at various levels.  During the course of book she relates about a poster that was displayed at either Google or Facebook, her current employer.  Simply is says:  Done is better than Perfect!  Amen