Saturday, April 19, 2008

Ahhh...lots of progress!

It's almost 3:30, and I'm taking a small break.

The first progress of the morning was to try out the OC#2 block. A few people from the chatgroup were writing in that difficulties were arising, so.....rather than cut out ALL the light strips, I wanted to be sure I could handle the block without difficulty. I dug into my 2" square stash and pulled a couple of squares, grabbed a handful of light triangles, and a couple of dark triangles, and ................
.....v'iola! Not a problem!!!!


So, I set those aside------I WANTED to continue, but....I made a goal that today I would tackle as much of the CC as possible. So...off I went, back to the CC. I already had all the pieces cut to finish up part 4. YIKES! It still looked daughnting with all those teeeny-tiny triangles. But....after only 2 hours, I was done. WOW! That went pretty smooth!

I already had CC#5 printed out, so......on I went. I was glad to see I was able to dig back into my Pink stash. It's unfortuate that we needed to use 2" strips instead of 1.5" strips though! I really went overboard with Part#1 and cut TONS of 1.5" strips. I guess I'll need to peek at Bonnie's site for a pattern that'll burn up those strips.
Anyway....It took me some time to cut up some 2" strips from both my pinks and browns. However, within an hour I was cutting them into triangle pieces using the Companion Ruler. What a GREAT TOOL! And, rather than cutting ALL 200 triangle sets out to then be sewed; I sewed as I cut. I would cut one strip set, which usually led to 6-11 pairs, which I then took right to my sewing machine to piece. And, as Bonnie always says, I had quite a nice "MILE OF CHAINS" behind my machine.

Ironing isn't my favorite, but I didn't mind seeing the pieces come together. In fact, I never used to iron and would OFTEN be diappointed in the blocks I was producing. Well, DUH AMY, the seams never came together right; when I finally would iron, I would often have 'buldges' because the piecing just wasn't accuate! I am now a full-fledged IRONER!!!

So, right around 3:00, I was done with CC#5. (See all those little dog-ear pieces that were cut from the blocks! I WILL eventually start tossing those into old pillowcases as was suggested on the chatgroup. In fact, I'm thinking of sewing together some smaller pillowcases using fabric from my stash and make my own pillow forms using my tiny scrap throw-aways! The smallest pieces I keep now are 1" squares/strips.)

I am now taking a small break; updating the blog, checking email, resting my back and shoulders, kickin' back with some ice-water and relaxing. However, the main reason I'm on the computer is I need to print out CC#6. YEAH! Bonnie eluded to the fact that #6 starts putting all the pieces together.

So, once again, I'm off and sewin. In a few more hours, I am plannin on showing the progress.
Later.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Amy

Loved reading your blog and I wish I would love running, am always tiered and sore since I stopped working last year september.Anyway I am now going to start on step 2 for the OC mystery, was able to get the ruler yesterday.
cheers
Christine Brisbane/Australia

Quilter Kathy said...

You are making great progress!

Amanda said...

Wow, you have been busy. I didn't find any problems with step 2 either - I think the emails sometimes cause more problems than they solve! I've always been an ironer - I just love the feeling of achievement as you see the pieces pile up and get to feel just a bit clever as you see the seams match.