Monday, July 1, 2013

Swoon Blocks Finished

This weekend it was all about finishing the piecing of my Swoon blocks. It happened!!


Neti, of course, was front and center. It was HOT this weekend. Well, for Seattle it was hot and for no air conditioning it was hot. With the sewing machine burning and the iron steaming I somehow managed to push through and finish the last four blocks. The hubby called me the Desert Fox all weekend as he was amazed at my ability to stand up to the heat.


Swoon #13- Finished!


Swoon #14- Finished!


Swoon #15- Finished!


Swoon #16- Finished!

Of course, by the end, I had a serious efficiency that I wish I had had in the beginning. This specific to how I pieced and how many chained pieces I could link to speed up my sewing. Oh well, if you don't learn along the way you can't grow, right? Now I know to look for piecing patterns instead of following the given pattern verbatim. 


Once finished I laid out all of the blocks on the floor. I swapped this one for that one. I rotated corners. I moved one here one there. It just didn't look right. So I did what any self-respecting girl does in a similar situation. I called my Mom. 

We spent an hour on FaceTime together repositioning blocks. It was GREAT fun and so nice to have a second pair of keen eyes on the quilt that weren't my own. This quilt is so big and my apartment so small in comparison, that I had to stand on my kitchen counter with the phone near the ceiling in order for Mom to properly see the whole quilt. She would then suggest, "move the second one from the left third row down to first on the right top row". I would set the phone down, climb off the counter, run over, reposition the blocks, and run back up on the counter. "How about this, Mom?" It took us about 20 minutes to both agree on an arrangement, but we did it and it looks awesome! Thanks, Mom!


I had all the gumption to keep going and start ironing and cutting my sashing, but it was too hot! I decided I'd done good work and took the rest of the day to whine about the heat with the hubby and drink a pitcher of fresh brewed ice tea with mint from the patio. With the 4th of July off work I'm hoping to get it all to a point of basting by the weekend. We'll see, I don't even have a backing for it yet. Lots to do! Excited for a short week and a long weekend to make it happen. 

Happy Crafting!