a little bit about failure

which could be subtitled "why I don't do piecing"

this is a quilt block that I've been fiddling with for over a week

problem is there's that big gap and this is supposed to be all of the pieces

uh, not working

the daytime guild I belong to did this block in January and sent me the instructions via email -- it's based on a pattern created by Paula Nadelstern -- a few years ago I had borrowed one of her books from the library and decided after a couple of weeks of frustration that I'm too much of a math moron to be able to figure it out

guess I still am

now I'll need to decide what I'm doing about the project that group has decided to work on this year

so after feeling a bit defeated by that exercise, I spent some time with the jelly roll that I got at the guild meeting last week

one of the handouts at that meeting was a pattern that makes these neat little blocks that can all be made from the 2 1/2 inch strips that make up a jelly roll

it takes 16 of these blocks to make a crib size quilt, so I'll be stitching up 14 more, then deciding how to set them all together

work on the big trees piece has resumed

the next thing that needs to be done is adding all the "leaves" on the redwood

after trying several experiments, I figured out that if I used my custom cut rubber stamps to stamp on the "sticky" side of the iron on pelon, I could then iron that to the back of the fabric and use that as the guide to cut out the little fronds

I have about 90 of these stamped and ironed on, so when I'm on the phone for the next week or so I'll be cutting these out and getting them ready to be stitched on to the quilt


still working on this

the big floral link is finished, and I've started on the first of the side links

the piece of brass doesn't have any holes in it, so I used strands of size 15 beads to create a net that will hold it in place

more experimenting to follow


time to go get the laundry done, then back to projects