Before I take a swing...

Ok, little confession... Before I start the quilt that I mentioned in my previous post, I've decided to be a little bit of a chicken liver and make a practice quilt.

I guess it's not fair to just call it a "practice quilt", this is actually something I've wanted to make for a long time, but since this quilt is a good deal easier, I thought it would be smart to make this one first and get the feel of how the quilting process is going to work for me. Here's what I'm aiming for...

• Smallish - enough to cover most of me and I'm tall, 5'10", did I ever tell you that before?
• Simple - 4" squares. I picked up a few fat quarters and some plain white fabric for the infill
• Lightweight - something light for cool summer evenings in the back yard, or on the couch
• Pretty - like, duh!

Sew! I cut all my squares a couple of days ago, then I took a night off and went and saw Eclipse with a friend (IT WAS AMAZING!! - except for the bad wigs, oofa.)  then last night I hatched my plan and laid out all of the squares in a random kind of way (which actually isn't all that random and took some thought so I wouldn't end up with blocks of color), then got to sewing!

I like the laying out process, it reminds me of my childhood. I have one of those big, foldy, cardboard thingamajigs, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It's white and has a blue 1" grid across the whole thing, folds up like an accordion? My mom had one of these when I was a kid and my brother and I used to breakdance on it, we could spin really fast... hey, it was the 80's. Mom was constantly after us to get off of it... poor woman, I don't know how she ever got anything done. I didn't have any kids dancing across my grid thingy, but I did have two dogs & two cats curiously fascinated as to why I was sitting on the floor moving bits of fabric to and fro. 

Ok, enough of the bla, bla, bla, I talk too much, don't I?

Wanna see my progress?? Cool!

The sewing part goes really fast! I think it took 2 or 3 times as long to cut all these squares as it did to sew them. Is that normal?

See, it's kind of long. When I hold it in front of myself it goes from about my shoulders to my ankles. Perfect! This is the first half, I'm going to sew the other half together tonight when I get home from work.

The hardest part was carrying squares from the living room to my sewing spot, the first 4 rows especially, because I kept forgetting what order I picked up the pieces in. I don't know why I always try to do things the hard way... sheesh. Starting with row five I made a key so I could scoop up several rows at a time.

I don't know if I'm doing any of this the right way, and I hope I'm doing a good job. I'm just sort of making it up as I go along, doing what feels right to me.

I'm so eager to start the other quilt too, I couldn't help myself, I made my first block last night as well. I just wanted to see if I could... and happily, I think I did ok!

A few of my corners don't match up exactly, but that's all right. I can live with it. I have 29 more blocks to make, so I'm sure I'll improve.

Thanks for letting me share with you guys, I think this quilting thing might be addictive! I can't wait to get home, get dinner made and cleaned up, just so I can get back to sewing!

oxo,

Lisa