slow and steady wins the race


Happy Easter!I hope all of you that celebrate had a relaxing weekend, and if you're lucky enough to have a day off today, have a wonderful Easter Monday too!

I've been making some very slow progress on the grandmother's flower garden blocks I started last week. Like I mentioned before, this is a long term project, and I'm just picking it up as and when I can. I'm not preparing all my fabrics and pieces beforehand, because as I go along my choices may change, and it seems silly to cut everything out now and have to store the cut fabrics safely.

This is where I'm at as of today.

2 flowers have been made, and another few flowers are prepped. As I'm away at a quilt show with Sizzix this coming weekend I hope to make a little more progress on an evening in either the hotel bar or my room. If I want to go queen bed sized I'll probably need around 100 of these flowers. Yikes!!! That 1.25" hexagon die is going to get a lot of use!

I had some other english paper pieced blocks that I designed for a class I'm doing later this summer, and I'm using my big shot to cut some of the borders.

I like to use the big shot this way - incorporating all kinds of technique into one project. The big shot is just one tool in my arsenal of quilting supplies, you don't have to use it for the whole project, but it certainly helps speed things up when you do use it.

I've used templates and scissors to cut out the english paper pieced centres, rotary cutter and ruler for the background and the first border, and now the second border will be half square triangles cut using the 2.5" HST die. 

These little triangles just need piecing into HST blocks and adding to the quilt top below. Then I'll consider the next border. I'm not planning much further than a border ahead, and taking things quite organically - hoping that as the quilt progresses it'll almost tell me what it wants next. It's great fun looking through my dies and finding ones that will work. 

If you live near Exeter then I hope you can make a visit to the Spring Quilt Festival this coming Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I'll be on the cotton patch stand, so if you do come by make sure you say hi!