I need another can of spray starch...the saga of a new quilt project...

It is Monday right??? I love 3 day weekends but it always messes me up as to what day of the week it is... tomorrow will seem like Monday again...oh well. I as able to get a bit of sewing done. Now I haven't put together the churn dash blocks I showed a while ago (more on them later) because I got distracted by a shiny new project...this one!

It is only pinned to my design wall so ignore the ripples and crookedness. This isn't the quilt I set out to make but I like this one better!  I stumbled upon this pattern from Missouri Star... Cutting Corners... you can see the tutorial here.  Another easy peasy quilt from Jenny Doan... first I had to decide on what fabric to use. I really liked the collection they used and the jelly roll was still available on their website but I make the shocking decision to USE SOME FABRIC I ALREADY OWN... I know... you had to fan your self a bit over that revelation!  Re- read that last sentence and remember this operative word...SOME...so, I had some fat quarters of Amy Butler fabrics I hadn't opened, and some pieces of Anna Maria Horner that played nicely together...and then I saw a new collection from Amy Butler called Eternal Sunshine... you can see it here.  Well I reined myself in and only ordered some fat eighths and then realized I needed a nice background fabric...hmmm... is there anything is the 1000's of yards of fabric in my stash that will work ?  No, no there isn't... (you believe me, don't you? I knew you would!)

A visit to my favorite store Fabric Shack resulted in 3 yards of a lovely dusty teal from the  Robert Kaufmann line  Quilter's Linen the colorway called  Seafoam which you can see here. This is a much better picture of the true color of this fabric than my pictures.  I've used this fabric before in a golden mustard color and I like it a lot... it looks woven but it  is printed. Anyway where was I? So now I was off to the races to put this quilt together... and then I saw this quilt... go look here... I'll wait. Isn't that a gorgeous quilt??? When you have time you need to check out her while blog, Tamarack Shack. She lives in Canada and does beautiful long arm quilting. I'm so glad I saw her layout... much more interesing than just HST, dontcha think?

Here are some close up of the fabrics...

Lots of medium to large scale prints ...many busy ones... I like the busy ones!   When stripped and sliced they meld together and you get the feel of a crazy quilt... at least that's what it puts me in the mind of.  

So where does the spray starch come into play in this saga... well, the technique used to construct these blocks gives you bias on all 4 sides... the secret to keeping them in check is spray starch them...a lot!  I spray starched the strip sets and then I spray starched the background fabric... I used a lot of spray starch. I need another can.  Also I squared up all my blocks with my new Bloc Loc ruler...have you played with these yet?  I'm a sucker for a new ruler and these are quite nice... a little pricey but they make squaring up HST blocks very easy and accurate.

Oh... remember the churn dash blocks I mentioned like an hour ago... here is what they looked like before I took them off my design wall...

I think it is going to be a beautiful quilt when I get it assembled. As you can see all the piece are cut... I do need to make some minor adjustments to the length of the sashing strips but it should go together easily.  Oh, it did make the weather cooler for a day or two and then...bam...right back to 90 degrees...

Hope this shortened week is productive for you...and for me too!

happy stitching-
carol fun