quiet weekend with some progress

Pippi in her "new" old spot on DJ's desk chair--she thinks she is hiding, of course, even with that leg and tail stuck out. The chair and accompanying towel leave the tell-tale signs that she has been there. Reminds me of the time when one of DJ's golfing buddies caught him in the bright sunlight and commented about his backside being coated with pet hair.

We have not plans for the three day weekend--I guess being retired and me, not long back from my trip to TN, MO does not compel us to head off somewhere. A holiday weekend is not a big deal since we don't have a job to escape from. The hot weather will continue so we do not view it as the last summer weekend blow out either.

So I have made some progress on my Santa wall hanging. All the motifs are completed leaving just the 6 pine trees and the checkerboard pattern at the bottom on the piece--it measures about 15 x 22. If I don't get stalled out on the binding, I can count one personal UFO completed. I am going to toss two ancient ones that I have zip interest in and can get my hands on fairly easily.

And, I have taken your advise to "just do it" with the round robin. It " ain't been easy" to get it up to the point of the bridging strip. Not sure why this things looks like it is glowing unless the other layers of that bright yellow are showing through.

I had talked to Gary the robin leader about this and the wavy edges two weeks ago. No real advice there as this one has been a bit of a problem from the get-go. Do what you have to do to get it evened up basically. I got the measuring tape to it Friday afternoon--through the center it seemed to be relatively okay on the horizontal---but the edges measured almost a full TWO inches more in width. Vertically, much the same scenario. It was the corner units then that had to be the biggest problem. Armed with the seam ripper I dived in and dismantled one corner. I ended up taking a much bigger center seam (about 3/4 inch) with the yellow squares thinking that I had to lose an inch one corner. I put the corner triangle back on and trimmed it square and then eased it all in to make the yellow squares line up properly. After the 2nd one I was sure I was on the right track.

All of it needed to be trimmed down to a uniform width of border and some little strategic tucks taken on a couple of the outer seams to ease in the fullness at the edges--I am pretty sure she had cut the outside triangles as half square triangles rather than quarter square so there was some bias edge stuff going on. It is not perfect but it was far from that before. Fortunately that black fabric (poly cotton) that I have complained about for the past rounds is a blessing in some ways--hides the seam lines and the fact that the points are gone on the edges and we can fool the eye into just seeing that yellow. Well, the yellow is hard to miss--like the elephant foot prints in the butter, LOL.

Finally, finally last night after supper I could get a uniform measurement to cut the bridging fabric and apply the strips---unfortunately I sewed in the vertical side rather than the horizontal--no wonder I was having harder time getting it to fit, LOL. I stuck with it though my husband thought I should 1) refuse to work on it 2) toss it 3) give it back to the person who had created the problem. Gee, Honey, thanks for being supportive but it doesn't work that way.

SO finally I am at a point where I can actually do what I am required to do to this thing. 4 inch finished stars and/or log cabin units. I've got a pinwheel star picked out with spiky edges that should go well with her New York Beauty type center. These pieces are pretty small so I will foundation piece them especially with the long narrow pieces and points. Not sure how many I want to make, eight at the fewest. I am also not sure which colors yet as I need to fussy cut out some rusty/browny bits of a batik like print to put between them. As much as I would like to put some more turquoise or purple in there the fabric cues may lead in another direction. I think it will all be okay in the end. Boy, I sure hope so.