Sunday, January 5, 2014

I stitched Celtic blocks!

Bonnie surprised us with an early reveal of Celtic Solstice on January 1st. I was super excited ... and ... totally let down. I've been having fun and I don't want it to end. Pretty much like a toddler at a birthday party, LOL. Thankfully our Facebook group is still chatty and quilting.

I have seen so many lovely pictures that I had to pause my remedial chevron punishment exercise to lay out some units to see just one block. Of course, one block leads to two. And to three. You get the idea ....

My humility block for today. I did fix it.
I laid the units on my cardboard pattern board on my bed - away from the dogs. Standing at the foot of the bed, it looked busy. And messy. And needing trimmed. I just didn't see it. I wanted a picture to share with my quilty friends. I like to run with the cool kids ya know. Bwahahahaha! Just teasing. I'm a nerd or geek or whatever we are called today. Science club and all that stuff.

Bonnie's design

I stood up on the little step stool and gasped out loud. I could see it!
Why could I not see with my eyes what the lens of the camera shows me?
It was beautiful!

Star version

My daughter came in to help me rotate chevrons so we could see it as Bonnie designed, as well as the star version many people are creating.

9 blocks stitched
In the end, she chose the star version. It is her future quilt, so it is her decision. She let her OCD out to arrange the units of the blocks. Oh my goodness, I can't wait until she is stitching her own quilts, LOL. That OCD will make her such a beautiful perfectionist :)

I am hoping to link up to Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Mystery Monday

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Measure twice, cut once. Oops! Cut twice to get it right.


I have been struggling with creating scrappy chevrons. I am participating in Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Mystery quilt which calls for 244 chevrons. Oh my goodness. I reviewed Bonnie's instructions, slowed down and paid attention. Some chevrons were better, some not as much. While trimming a stitched chevron side, I looked a bit closer. My green rectangle seemed a bit big but maybe it was from being too scant with my seam. Or maybe it was just too big ....

Supposed to be 2" x 3.5"

I did more exploring to find my neutral squares were also a shade big.

NOT a 2" square!
ARGH! 



I pulled out my remaining tiny pieces and found most were too big! My sewing may be imperfect but starting with the wrong size piece just set me up to do badly. I trimmed a stack of the greens and neutrals down to the proper size. And baby, was that scrap pile big .....



I'm not sure how I cut them too big. I recall my back giving me grief and sitting down somewhere in the various cutting sessions. Maybe that angled my view? Safe to say I will be more careful in the future.