A New Project

It is a cold and rainy day here in North Texas. Two days ago it was nearly 80 degrees outside. Today it is in the 40's. My Grandpa used to say, "Don't like the weather? Wait a few minutes and it will change." He was exactly right.

That said, the fabrics in my new project are perfect.

I've got a rainbow of yummy neon batiks and just a smidgeon of black. The colors are sure to brighten up any day.

I found the pattern in Benni Harper's Quilt Album by Earlene Fowler and Margrit Hall. Silly me, I thought it was cool and different and shared it with my boys. The oldest, Noah, said he would like a quilt just like it only in neon and black.

I've never made a big quilt with curves, but I've made a couple minis. How much more difficult could it be?

Gilbert said he would help me cut the pieces out. His first attempt to cut quarter circles was a tad disappointing. Being a huge fan of the rotary cutter, he was not impressed with trying to work that wheel around a curved plastic template.

I thought about it over night and decided that maybe the best route would be paper templates, a.k.a patterns. I copied the template page onto a couple of sheets of freezer paper;

cut the pieces apart from one another; and then ironed them on to the fabric I wanted to use. I then cut each piece individually with a pair of sharp scissors. It takes a little time, okay, maybe it take a lot of time, but the pieces are perfect.

I've been sewing each block as I cut the pieces. Cutting one block at a time, then sewing it, and using the same freezer paper templates to cut the next block, has taken about 45 minutes a block. With 120 blocks to go this quilt will take approximately 90 hours to complete. (Oh my, I shouldn't have done the math.)

My curved piecing is a little puckered, but it seems to be getting better with each block I complete. Noah says that he doesn't care about the puckers. "Like I'm going to sit around with my friends and critique your sewing. I'm going to be under it, not examining it.". You have to love a boy like that.

Maybe he will get it when he graduates from college.