Westering Women and Summertime Updates

You may recall I had my doubts about this Month s Westering Women block. It looked hard.

from B. Brackman's blog,
link in right sidebar>>>

Not that I mind a challenge but it required enlarging and printing templates...on one's printer. Hahaha, I have the worlds crappiest printer these days. I could have bought the Rolls Royce of printers for what it has eaten in the way of prepaid postage sheets. Instead I bought the cheapest Target printer--on sale. It sucks.
Needless to say I couldn't transfer the pattern from Brackman's blog page. [Other people had problems too, see the comments. I'm not just a whiny problem child person, here alone with my --whine.]
Instead I drafted the block on graph paper. Took me about a half hour. I made a cutting pattern and a Mylar stitching template. For set in corners it's especially important to mark exactly where to stop sewing, and to not sew through the seam allowances.

I've mentioned I work better with my own patterns. I believe this is because I think things through as I draw out the pattern. [When I designed clothes, though I did not sew the sample garments, I did have to be able to tell my samplemakers, and later my production people, how to sew the things together. So, same idea here.]

I sewed the block by machine. I took my time. The block went together quickly and nicely and even finished the right size . Hooray. [one hint, for me, I   cut the set-ins larger and trim. They are sewed from the points, so the extra is just on the outside edge. Gives some wiggle room especially with all these biases.

Less successful was the convergence of all the points and stem. Big LUMP, though with manipulation I got the seams settled and it looks pretty good!

Learned something new, too: Lemoyne Stars. That's what the basic star shape is called.
.....

Dotty 365 Update: I ordered a couple of maybe backings for my Circles quilt.
As always things look quite different when not on one's computer screen. I did expect these words to be quite large. About 2" high? I suppose very big is better than just wishy washy XL?

Compared to real-life sized scripts used in the dot squares.

I like it---I love that it's modern and graphic, a nice change of style here---and would be relieved to think it's wide enough, 108", always an issue with machine quilting. The narrow border could maybe be the Pencils, or a simple confetti dot.



I also ordered this coastal print. It is a map, but with script annotations, so it would ''go'',

especially if I use the duck egg blue on the left for the narrow border. Neither will go to waste, I'm always desperate for yardage for backings since I rarely buy more than a half yard of a pattern.

...
Now about Summertime. It's giving me fits, it's a problem child. I planned to make this quilt from my meager stash, but some of the big borders required my ordering yardage because to look at all cohesive the two applique borders should match.

I bought 1 1/2 yards of the blue picnic plaid. Uh oh. The inner borders took 1/2 yard and for some reason I was sure the leftover yard was enough for the outer borders. But, no. They are cut 8 1/2" [9" w trimming added] by 54 1/2" One yard yields 4 strips 9" x 44". ooops, bummer. I can't find the exact blue plaid.

I found a version that hasn't arrived yet, or I found a smaller purple plaid to use for one of the borders. Depends on which looks worse.

I hope to have Summertime finished by May 1st. I want to start prepping my Ohio Sampler then, for beach sewing. Wish me luck?

love

lizzy

gone to the beach~~~~~~

PS Mo is officially on strike today! He now refuses to go out at all when he can hear the wind blowing hard. Okay by me! He can have pit stops on the sheltered deck, he has a little potty pad there...and we have fun playing tag and fetch indoors. Here he is, all huddled and sad---he even threw up! Poor little man.