Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
As I said the other day, I made good progress over the weekend. I have made better progress-
< this is one of the good things about shelter-in-place: sewing at lunch time >
Since then I finished all the blocks, half blocks, quarter blocks: ALL. Hooray. Now I just have to sew the thing together.
This doesn’t mean the piece will be finished. There are still at least two borders, the back and the binding. Perhaps by the time shelter-in-place is over, I will have it done.
The weekend was tough. The sense of unreality I am home all.the.time was very strong. I couldn’t really wrap my head around it even though we have been living it. I took the car out for a spin and felt like I had forgotten the finer points of driving. It is hard to explain. The only thing I can do is not to think about the unreality and list off the good things I have.
Be that as it may, sewing must go on. I am focused on Frolic! I want that quilt off my design wall. I want to work on other projects. For once, I don’t feel like my weekend sewing was futile. I feel like I made real progress.
One thing I did to get to this place was sew a big chunk together (upper left hand side). Once that was done, I repositioned all the other blocks so that they would be in the approximate place they would end up when the quilt was finished. This small act allowed me to see what else I needed to sew. As you can see, All I need to sew is 4 more half blocks. Halleluijah! I can really see that the end is near.
You might wonder why I don’t just toss it on the UFO pile and move on to something else. That is devil talk! I don’t want my UFO pile to grown any higher than it is already. This thing will be ready to go to Colleen when shelter-in-place is over. With any luck, it will go with three friends.
No joke. I really can’t count.
The other day I crowed about finally finishing all the whole blocks for Frolic! I was really thrilled. I made progress!!!
🙁
I didn’t actually finish all the blocks. I just counted wrong. I thought I had made 5 rows of 5, but in the photo, you can clearly see 4 rows of 5.
I didn’t figure it out until I was working on the corner and put the blocks on point. In trying to place them correctly, I realized I was short.
WTH?
I counted, recounted, looked for missing blocks and finally at the photos. I realized what I had done and that I was just so anxious to finish that I had counted wrong.
This was supposed to be fun, not a long and difficult process. I don’t mind difficult quilts with a lot of pieces, but I am still not quite recovered from Flying Away.
Now I have to decide whether to work with the blocks I have or make another 5 blocks. Those whole blocks have 65 pieces each. While I have some already made, I don’t have all made. 5 more blocks is not that many, but still.
Sigh.
I turned a corner on Frolic! the other day. Literally. I finally figured out how to piece the corner. It was all about wrapping my head around what pieces I still needed to cut since I hadn’t following the directions. That should teach me, but it probably won’t.
I actually pieced one, too. I may have also figured out how to piece the half blocks, but I haven’t tried yet.
I have been sewing a little each day on my lunch hour (who needs to eat?) and after work. It is keeping me sane while I help DH get used to working at home. A few seams a day really does make a difference.
Now I am finished with all of the whole blocks. The next step is half and quarter blocks. Yes, I am going to make them.
You probably think Frolic! is taking forever. I think it is so you wouldn’t be wrong!
I pieced a lot this weekend, what with COVID-19 keeping me at home 24/7 (no, I am not sick, but everything is cancelled), I really had nothing else I wanted to do. I finally finished sewing together all of the whole blocks.
After not getting a response to my plea for the Amy Bradley fabric, I am cutting the last bits very carefully and scrounging every last bit. I won’t have enough to use for the half and quarter blocks, but I found another fabric that will work as well. It has a similar blue to the background of the Amy Bradley fabric, so will blend in.
I spent another day Sunday, ostensibly sealing the fate of the cold I felt coming on, but really sewing. I did stay home in order to make sure I didn’t get sick. It was a great time to sew. I thought I would get as much done as I felt I had done on Saturday. It wasn’t to be.
I feel like I sewed as much, but I can’t see the progress. The progress isn’t as dramatic and I wanted visible progress.
After my efforts on Friday night and Saturday, I was hopeful that I would get the blocks done on Sunday. I had to make space on my design wall. I would gain space as the seams shrank the blocks together. That required sewing, so I got down to it. I forgot how much piecing Bonnie Hunter‘s quilt patterns require. I really did make progress. If you compare the two photos, they look similar at first glance, but do show the progress.
Work finished Sunday:
I also know I am on the brink of really having my progress show up.
I am backtracking. I worked hard on piecing Frolic! over the weekend. This is no different than other Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilts in that there is a lot of piecing. I think I pieced 1.5 blocks total. I worked for about 6 hours on this piece and don’t feel like I made a ton of progress.
Regardless, I had a lot of time to work on this piece and look at it. I think it may need to be on point. I may still set it straight, but I am thinking it may need to be set on point. Stay tuned.
Half and quarter blocks are not my favorite. As a result, I have been thinking about setting Frolic! in a straight set in order to avoid those pesky half and quarter blocks. Since I haven’t had the time to actually move any blocks around on my design wall, I went trolling for examples of the Frolic! quilt on IG.
I saw a number of blocks sets laid out in a straight set. Jeff Rutherford took a straight on photo that really helped me visualize how the quilt might look. Little Bunny Allison also posted a straight on photo.
Finally, I saw a previous Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt, On Ringo Lake, by Sew Angela. She has some setting triangles, but they are just a few pieces. This layout keeps the quilt on on point, but avoids me having to make those half and quarter blocks.
Perhaps I am just being lazy? There is a lot of piecing in this quilt (and all of Bonnie’s mystery quilts!) Barbara Reeves had a particularly nice example of the quilt as Bonnie intended, so it is still a possibility.
After the update the other day, the piecing on Frolic! went a lot faster. I think I reached a tipping point and was able to zoom right along. I made some more progress and feel like I am making good headway, though it looks like a mess right at the moment.
I believe I need 25 full blocks. The 7 I have are in various states of being sewn. The spaces are because of the seam allowances or missing pieces.
I haven’t dealt with the half and quarter blocks yet. I don’t like quilts where there are half finished blocks, in general. I am seriously considering a straight set. I laid out some of the pieces in that way before the Reveal. When I have a few more blocks finished, I’ll lay it out that way and see what I see. The corner pieces with the 4 patches make a very interesting secondary pattern.
Frolic!, or what there is of it, has been on my design wall since earlier this month. I said then that I didn’t want it to become another UFO, but I didn’t made any progress. I don’t want it to become a UFO, so I worked on it over the weekend.
I determined that I needed to start piecing in order to get interested in it again. I haven’t finished Clue 4 (still!). I don’t want that lack to drag me down.
I thought I would start from the corner and cut and piece as I went along, chunking the top together. The corners are a conundrum and I left them off after awhile and worked on the blocks. You can see that my progress doesn’t look like much, but it feels like progress. I am still contemplating a straight set.
A lot of the Frolic! Mystery quilts have been posted. I am determined not to let this one become another UFO, but I have to admit that a couple of the steps are not making my life easy.
They aren’t difficult just require a bunch of weird cutting and few speed techniques.
As you can see from the photo, I have done a couple of things. First, I rearranged the pieces so that the piece is oriented the way it will be oriented when it is all sewn together. I did not have it on point before. I didn’t exactly achieve the on point look at this time, but as soon as I get some of the more difficult pieces cut, I’ll be able to do it.
I also cut some of the triangles that will be Flying Geese in the near future.
I’d really like to start sewing the piece together, but I don’t have enough pieces yet. I need more of the pinwheels and the weird Flying Geese.
Bonnie Hunter did the big reveal of the final layout of Frolic! the other day. I laid out the pieces that I had to see how my version of the project would look. What you see in the photo does not show the piece on point, which is how the final will be sewed together. As soon as I get some more of the pinwheels made, I will begin sewing the piece together in the way it was intended so I have more space on the design wall.
I am happy with my choices. The green does stick out quite a bit, but I think it will settle down once I have more pieces ready to sew. I have a lot of HSTs and Flying Geese to make.
This is probably a design I wouldn’t have made if I had waited until the final reveal to decide, but I am happy enough with it. I’d be happier if I had been able to keep up with the clues, but it is what it is.
I finally finished part 6. I am now only 2.5 parts behind in the project. Bonnie published a sneak attack set of directions on New Year’s Eve. I just didn’t have a chance to do it when I finally did notice it, which wasn’t until the Friday.
I was vindicated in not finishing part 4 when part 6 was making Flying Geese from the quarter square triangles that were supposed to be cut in part 4. I did use the pieces I had cut to make Flying Geese using Bonnie’s Essential Triangle Tool* method, but I made the rest using the Deb Tucker Wing Clipper ruler* method. If you have the dimensions, you don’t actually need the ruler, but the chart of sizes is one of the benefits of the ruler. I also use this ruler to make Sawtooth Star blocks.
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I made a lot of progress over the holiday. I am back at work, so I hope to continue to make progress.
The blocks are mostly sewn together. I am chunking them and it is going quickly, though I have started to pin the intersections so they match.
I added a row to the right and another on the bottom. After I sewed the first group of blocks together, I had space. Since I have a lot of blades, I decided to use them. The piece is now 64 blocks (groups of 4-2 blade blocks). It fits on my design wall, though wouldn’t if it weren’t sewn. I had to cut more backgrounds, which is a little tedious, but I am breaking up the work by sewing.
I hope to have the top finished soon.