Shadow Owes Its Life to Light – Page 2 – OccasionalPiece

I’ve been working on the Amish With A Twist, Series Two, and I’m happy to say I am all caught up now. Above is Flying Geese.

Bowtie was next.

Rolling Stone, and I while I should re-do a join here and there, I’m not. I looked at the big quilt again (I’m always looking at that picture) and I really believe a seam that is a quarter-inch off won’t be noticed. It’s like a metaphysical thing: I know it’s a 1/4-inch off, so therefore I am peace with my block, peace with the piecing, and at one with the world. Whatever. I’m not unpicking it.

I had to make five of these Mosaic Stars, but that was nothing like the first batch where I made twelve blocks with umpteen little pieces in it.

Tips for the blocks? True up the inner pieces. That almost sounds a bit metaphysical as well, but I’m referring to trimming off those stray bits of the inner units before you build the bigger block, if you want to be happy. I didn’t do that with Rolling Stone (but lets not go there again).

We just finished the jacaranda blooming season, and I thought I’d show you this photo my husband took on one of his bike rides, the tree in full bloom. I love these trees.

We have had my son and his family here over the July 4th holiday, when we got together with some friends and ate some barbeque, saw some fireworks, and hung out as much as possible. It is wild–their family of four girls (ages 2 through 10) likes nothing better than a party–but they seemed to be surviving the boring old grandparents.

(Info on quilt found *here.*)

Hope you had a great Fourth as well.

I’ve been working on Amish With a Twist–part II, having sewn up some strip sets before I went under the knife for foot surgery, then cut them apart:

While this is how the pattern recommended we proceed, but when sewing them together I found lots of repeated colors. Think carefully about where you sew your lights and mediums, trying not to have the same order of colors from bottom to top, otherwise you’ll find yourself with the problem I have below:

So yes, today I’ll be unpicking and re-stitching in order to break up the two yellows. What you see up on my pinwall is where I got a bit smarter and laid out the strips and the stars and the sets, and could mix and match before sewing them up in a rush.

Actually, when you open that first package, I’d recommend making yourself one of these:

A swatch card. I wrote the name of the color on each clip of selvage, then also coded them as to whether the pattern designer considered it a “medium” or a “light,” as shown by the pink or yellow lines next to the swatch. While it was true that I was cutting these out while hanging out with my three younger grandchildren, and I was trying to follow the plots of their multiple episodes of Witches of Waverly Place streaming down on Netflix as their mother took a nap, I was also pulling out my hair over which color was which. The pattern does include a color chart, but as we all know, print colors can vary from actual colors. So, do your best to sort out which is what color and go forward.

I’m past the initial confusion and aside from the bit of re-stitching I’m going to be doing in a minute, I’m enjoying this process. I’ve never done a Block of the Month (BOM) before, and it’s kind of fun to get a package and a pattern on your doorstep. It is fun to pick and choose colors in the fabric shop, I admit, as well as patterns and ideas, but this summer, given all the sturm und drang (aka “storm and stress”) of the surgery, family trips, and other sundry complications in my world, it will be nice to have part of the creative process simplified. This is my inspiration (the finished quilt top) and I look at it often:

Hopefully, if I stay on track and don’t get too far behind (yes, I’m three blocks behind already!) I’ll have a gorgeous quilt like this one.

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On a side note: for those of you with tons of zucchini in your gardens, I finally got a handle on an interesting zucchini bread recipe, with dried cranberries and walnuts. Recipe *here.*