Monday, December 12, 2016

Friday Night Sewing Club

For my family Friday Night Sewing Club... unofficial of course because anybody can come and we don't always sew... sometimes we eat, or talk about sewing, or just talk.  We always talk!

The past couple of weeks we've been working on finishing up a couple of the retreat-goers' latest quilts.  One block is a snail's trail

Aunt Zel's center blocks, in red, white and gray.
 
The borders of each snail's trail block are made up of square in a square and this diamond block, otherwise known as the two parts of Storm at Sea.

 Nancy's diamond blocks in green, blue and purple batik.

Since I didn't attend the retreat, I am not making this particular quilt.  But since I like to sew, and I'd rather sit and sew than sit and do nothing, I don't mind sewing on someone else's project.


The blocks were paper piecing, and they had all the pieces printed out on newsprint paper, which is soft to sew through and tears off pretty easily.

The pieces need trimming once they're sewn.  You're seeing Nancy's hands zipping away in the upper right corner here:

And the pile of trimming in the center. 

Things I learned while paper piecing the diamonds:

  1. The fat end goes to the outside.
  2. It DOES matter which piece you grab for what corner...
  3. When in doubt, cut your pieces just a little bigger.  Honestly, that 1/8 of an inch matters!
  4. This pattern is tricky -- talk less, sew more!
There will be more diamonds to sew next week.  What are YOU doing on Friday??

Sew on...