Blessed

and not so blessed

Last week was a week of ups and downs, blessings and not-so-much.  

Monday - I had figured out how to make side triangles on Starry Night and was able to get the center together.

Nann/No Strings Attached asked about the original fabric I stacked for the 60-degree triangles so I thought youall might be interested, too.

There wasn't enough background in the print to make an interesting One Block Wonder, so I used a Stack 'n' Whack setting option which also made the quilt top bigger.  It still needed at least a small yellow border all around to give the top and bottom hexies some breathing room.  I cut yellow inner borders and got one side pinned.  I'm not sure why it's still sitting on my side table.  (Could be because I find sewing borders boring!)

Tuesday - an example of what happens when you can't wrap your head around quilty math.

For the life of me, I couldn't remember how to make an economy block to fit a specific size! Through trial and error I finally hit on the perfect size and was able to get the flying geese borders on Everlasting.

I decided to put a small red border on the outside of the geese to stabilize all those seams, but no matter how many times I measured, the geese stretched and became longer than the piece I had cut.  After making slight adjustments in the seams between geese, they were still too long (and different lengths side-to-side) so I set it aside -- on top of Starry Night.

Wednesday - Why not?  I had a frenzy of cleaning in the cutting room.  One thing lead to another and as I was putting away Hopkins Square I remembered I had made another working sample when I was leading the Magical Mystery last year.  So I put those blocks on the wall.

Every time I walked into the sewing room I would rearrange a few blocks.  By Sunday I had a finished center.  Just needs borders.  (Do you sense a pattern developing here?)  It will make a nice donation for a man, I think.

Thursday - Work on something without borders!  I have been stitching pairs of HSTs for Happy Surprise as leaders/enders for a couple of weeks.  I finally had enough done that I could make a few sample blocks.  

Which was a good thing because I discovered I had stitched a whole stack with the angle going in the wrong direction.  And, no, turning them upside down doesn't make it any better!  I got well acquainted with the seam ripper.  I have been pinning strips of HSTs together every afternoon while dinner preparation is going on in the kitchen.   This could be a long time in the making ... just sayin'

Friday - the Real Blessing.  Earlier Thursday morning I had some banking business to attend to which involved a 100-mile drive each way on I-40.  Why do I mention this?  Because on Friday morning, as I was turning into a church friend's driveway, I hit a stone curb and blew a tire!  Can you imagine if it had happened at 70 MPH on the interstate??

I already had an afternoon appointment to get my 40K service done and was going to discuss replacing tires at that time.  A quick call to AAA and a service man was on his way.  He put on the donut spare and after the church committee meeting, I was on my way to the tire store instead of the Toyota dealer!

I will be finishing up a few things this week and cleaning up my messes in the sewing room.  I need to clear off that work table so that my measuring and pinning of borders will be more accurate!