A Wedding and Four-Patch Lattice Project

My sister was married this weekend!  

We traveled back to California last week and was busy preparing for a backyard wedding.  The end result was a beautiful wedding between my sister and her wonderful man. 

Not much really accomplished last week in the sewing arena, but I have put together what I DID get done just before we left. 

My progress on the next project in this class:

I have cut my strips:

I sewed them together

I cut the strips to make 128 half four patches

I counted them.  I was ONE short. There was no left over space on the ends to sqeeze one more out, and I thought to myself.. Do I really have to make 2 more strips to make ONE 2 patch?
I decided I better recount.  WHEW, exactly 128!  Never been more grateful for miscounting! Usually, we have half strips left over. I just didn't even consider I would be THIS close.

Now, I sew the 2 halves together and I have instant Four Patches!

The other blocks are just squares! That is next on the task list.

I suppose the main lesson is reinforcing habit, and learning the sashing with corner stones.

Work in Progress: Flower garden and Quilting

Grandmother's Flower Garden is coming along.

I've mentioned that I am working this in a traditional 1930's fabric, in 1/2" hexagons. However, I am not working the project in the traditional sense.
I have 1.5" squares cut, 6 of same fabric

I have 1/2" iron-on water soluble hexagon cut outs. This is so handy, so I dont have to remove the cardboard hexies.

I press them together

I cut the extra fabric off edges, which saves time from trying to cut out perfect hexagons to start.

I glue the edges over the stabilizer with my Sewline water soluble glue

Then sew together using Wonderfil 100 wt. thread, a polyester thread cotton coated.

I am happy with my flower garden. It grows by the day.
Soon I will have to pick out my white solid fabric and start the path between so that I can estimate how many it will really take to complete.


My quilting project for now is first project from Volume 2.  Thankfully, I followed the directions, and basted the quilt when finished.  We were told that quilts set on point have a tendency to get out of shape if left as quilt tops and not basted.  It has been over a year since this was completed, so I'm happy I finished up with basting before the hiatus.

So, this week began the quilting part.   I have put George to work!  It is all Free Motion, except I will be using a ruler for the strips and the star on the four patch.   It is looking like a beginner, which is why she has you quilting beginning with quilt one in Volume 1.  I wish I would have learned on the first quilts, as now my nicer quilts are getting the ugly treatment!  Oh well.  They are all learning projects.  I noticed after I did 2 rows, that my tension may not be good, the back is a bit loose.  I will need to work on that before I get any further!