Tuesday, January 18, 2011

AT HOME RETREAT IS OVER

Donna and I have spent the last few days sewing and sewing and sewing.  We're each making the same quilt.  We're using some of the same fabrics and many different ones.  Each of us needs 9 star blocks.

In the process of making the 9 star blocks and 120 flying geese ... we made a bit of a mess.

The original pattern, published in Australian Patchwork (August 2009) called for handpiecing.  HANDpiecing?!  No way!!  I've never handpieced and I own 4 sewing machines - why in the world would I handpiece?  Donna drafted a paperpieced pattern (3 per block).  Paperpieced using a MACHINE ... much better idea!


Here are the blocks for my quilt.

And here are 70 out of the 120 geese blocks.


Donna left this a.m. to go back home to VA.  I will continue solo and get this project done ... I think. 
Check back tomorrow ... I'll show some of ways Donna and I varied the directions for making this quilt.  We didn't change the design but we did change the techniques we used to make it more machine-friendly.

2 comments:

Sharon said...

Looks wonderful..and I know you had lots of fun sewing together!

Donna Badgett said...

What fun we had! And we wore each other out completely. Some nights I think we could have fallen asleep at the dinner table. By the way, Mary, there are six pieces per block -- one for each long point with its attendant short points and backgrounds. And then there's the pinkish back of the block -- your way of doing that was so inventive!