Quilt Along ~ Episodes 3 and 4

I had to make a decision this weekend on what to do with my quilt along quilt.  I was toying with a particular edging (that is not binding) and in order to do it, I would have had to let go of the machine quilting.  Like any good quilting partners, Carmen and Nancy were very supportive of whatever I chose to do.  I guess you'll know what I decided when I'm totally done! 

After washing cutting, I had a bit of a snag.  Namely?  My sewing machine is my bedroom, and I like to be with my family, not holed up in the corner!  I stalled by pinning one rectangle to one square, but I finally had to breakdown and zip through all those.  I love how they made this little flag!  I thought I was being so clever when I figured this out...I was quite pleased that I had figured out how to do this part without cutting the thread and repositioning everything between all of them.  But then, right when I finished this, I saw on the I Have to Say blog that she had done the same thing, on some other project.  Harumph!

Then I put the little patches into a paper bag, and I randomly grabbed one at a time, and sewed them together (alternating square to rectangle and rectangle to square) into rows.  Each row needed five patches.   I had to force myself to not look at the bag at all, or it really wouldn't have been random at all.  I was undeniably attracted to certain scraps of fabric over others, even though everyone of them is beautiful on its own! 

When my bag was empty, I took a moment to admire my beautiful mess.  I'm sure I've mentioned that I am a) a klutz and b) a slob.  So, in addition to this growing pile, I cracked my leg on that open drawer four different times.  Awesome.

 This was before I sewed the strips together, but you can get the general idea.  It's a lot harder than it looks to lay it out so there are no rectangles that are the same touching each other!  I worked on this for half an hour, before calling in Erik so I could point out to him all the places where, even though they weren't touching, they were clearly making a pattern, and it was obviously unseemly, and he managed to be both supportive and insulting by rolling his eyes and telling me I was "thinking too hard".   Of course, he's right...I reminded myself of what my friend Monica always tells me when I'm sweating details.  She says, "Are you entering this project into a juried competition?  No?  Well, then, do you like the way it looks?  Alright then."

That's very sound advice, I don't mind telling you!