NOT Watching the Super Bowl....

I don't care much for foot ball.  It is fun to watch a high school team on a Friday night, especially if my boy is playing.  College games can be fun - they remind me of my Dad and fall weekends when I was little.  Professional games - not so much.    It just kills me that these young men, tattooed beyond recognition and paid way more than seems either reasonable or wise for someone their age, are held up as heroes.  In general, I see nothing heroic about them.  I do however enjoy the fellowship and snack food that big games inspire!

So last night while I was NOT watching Super Bowl XLV, and occasionally laughing at the commercials, I was working on a test run of my DQS10 swap mini.  Last weeks snow and ice kept the post from delivering the fabric I ordered, and the thread I need for a few quilt jobs, and the new clothes I ordered from LL Bean, and the new NetFlix movie....sigh....but I do have plenty of scraps.   Yesterday I got some out and played.

I started with a 2.5" Charm pack of "Just Wing It!" by MoMo for Moda.  (Note: This fabric won't be available in stores until April 2011.  I got mine in a gift bag from Moda Bakeshop)  There were 42 2.5" squares, one each with a few repeats of fabric.  These are mostly fun florals and stripes in aqua, coral, plum, and pear.  To these I added white Kona muslin.

From the little charms I cut a 1/4 circle (radius 2.5") From the white muslin Gilbert cut 42 3.5" squares.  I then raw edge appliqued the 1/4 circle about 3/8" from the rounded edge onto the white squares,  lining up the corners.  This gave the appearance of a Drunkard's Path square without the difficulty of piecing tiny round edges.

Next - I sewed the blocks into a grid - randomly placing the colors and clipped the raw edges.  Ruffling the edges with my fingers gave them the nubby look that you see in the picture.

I added a 3.5" white border and then took my top downstairs to fluff it while NOT watching the Super Bowl.

Fluffing, with a brand new tooth brush and a fine mist squirt bottle filled with water took well into half-time.

I fluffed by brushing the curved edges in a circular motion until they began to fray.  Once the job was started, more progress was made by using brush  with it's bristles lying parallel to the quilt top and stroking at right angle to the curve.  Spritzing the edges with a little water helped to loosen threads I wanted to remove.

During the process I learned a few things...

1) Never ever do this job while wearing a black t-shirt.

2) You need to clean the tooth brush every so often by brushing them with your fingers and pulling out the larger bits.

3) The job is rediculously messy...not as messy as the ticker tape down pour at the end of the game...more like washing kleenex with your jeans...and  kind of fun.

4) Dust busters tickle!

 In the end each of the 42 blocks had a nice fuzzy rim to it.


Now I just have to figure out how to quilt it.

PS  The real DSQ10 quilt will have grey rather than white in the background and I've choosen Sun Kissed for the colored bits.