We have a chevron!

I get a gold star! I finished cutting all the little pieces for Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Mystery quilt Clue #2. All 1464 of them. Though I cut extra because I goof sometimes. Like today ....

I marked 20 squares of yellow and 20 neutral black squares. Pinned the blacks. Took a deep breath and sat down at my machine. I stitched a black square across a green rectangle cautiously, cut the threads and opened it. Oh my goodness, it worked! It looked like a sweet green rectangle with a black triangle on the corner. How bout it? I was tickled :)

I started working through the neutral blacks first. Stitch a second line to save the little unneeded HST. I waste as little as possible. Cut between the lines of stitching carefully.

Time to iron. I needed to iron half the seams going up and the other half down. How do I remember which side goes which way? I hit on the idea to keep the point on the right side and that would orient my seams half one way and half the other. Hey hey it worked!

Now to work the other end. I pinned all the yellows and got started with renewed confidence. Stitch stitch, click, whir ... I was almost finished when the light bulb over my head flickered dimly. My machine sounded too quiet. I realized my bobbin thread had left the building. Duh! My still new Janome doesn't have a low bobbin alert like my last Brother machine.

Not a problem. Swap out the empty bobbin for a loaded one and I was back in business. I had only stitched 4!!! combos before figuring out I was out of bobbin thread. That lightbulb over my head obviously needs changed too! I decided to not pin them again as I had my hole-y stitching line to use as a guide.

I got to the 4th combo and there was no yellow square. I looked behind my machine. On the floor. On me. No square. Weird. Where did the yellow square go?

Found it! I came up short when one of the squares stuck to the bottom of another combo. I stitched right through it and never felt it. Sighsss .... It could have been worse. Seam ripper to the rescue. Restitch properly.

Stitch a 2nd line, cut, now iron. I wanted to put the point on the right but that wasn't going to work. The answer was obvious but today my brain was on vacation. Eventually it hit me to lay the point to the left. Duh. I was having a slow day but by golly I got it figured out. Lay the neutral points one way and the yellows the other to get the desired opposite direction seams for nesting.

They looked a little ragged, so I did trim them before making pairs. Have I mentioned that I can be a little controlling at times? I like the scrappy aspect of this quilt which is why I don't want to repeat combos. Yet. I laid out all my little rectangles and started 'randomly' making pairs.

Nesting my seams showed me my rectangle square combo stitching was not 100% accurate. I was a little long or short on a few. Not a problem. I have faith that these little seam boo boos will not be brutally obvious once the quilting and washing are added. Even if my mistakes glare at me, I will suck it up and remember I am learning to quilt.

What do I have to show for my time stitching today? 10 chevrons! Woo Hoooo! Only 234 to go, LOLOLOL ... I also have the confidence that comes from learning a new skill. I have never done the square on rectangle technique until today or created a chevron. A few seams didn't line up perfect but most lined up great. I have to thank Bonnie Hunter for teaching me these new skills and admit I am delighted with my imperfect chevrons.

Have an awesome day!