Sunday, November 09, 2008

All Saturday Sampler, All The Time!

It's gotta be in the Fed Ex box and headed for my long-arm quilter, Cotie, by Wednesday....

This weekend, I finished up the rest of my blocks. I made four that were not in the original plan for the Saturday Sampler... to replace the medallion in the center. I thought Janet's was gorgeous with the medallion,
















but I just wanted to have sixteen different blocks... I have had a blast learning how to use the Marty Michell templates. Sew much fun!


Here's one which was called "Greek Cross"... laid out to try to figure out how to put it together... These extra blocks did not have assembly instructions!












And all put together... I kinda like that one!












And here's one that I think was called Lancelot....You will note I have it pretty much all laid out properly....












Oopsie! ...Somehow it did not get sewn together quite so properly.












In fact, not one of those stupid red/gold squares was pointed in the right direction. This resulted in some creative cursing, and also the sound of frogs in the sewing room. (rippit, rippit, rip it out!)












The easy way out was to leave two in backwards, and put the other two in backwards also....resulting in a perfectly acceptable block. At least that's what Karen said. Perfectly acceptable. And did I mention the Fed Ex truck, next Wednesday?!

Moving on...

I had one other unfortunate moment when I had chain pieced about 4,592 triangles together across their hypotenuses.












(Oh my goodness, my math teacher was right! I actually DID use my Mad Math Skillz as an adult. I remembered that the long side of the triangle was the hypotenuse!)

Ahem. Too bad that I should have sewn them together across the short side of the triangles.












I decided to forego ripping out 4,592 hypotenuses.












(hey, I wonder if I can compost 4,592 100% cotton hypotenuses?)

I recut the blasted triangles!

Here's one called Bear Claw....












And here's the last block we got from this year's Saturday Sampler program, last Saturday. I loved this one! It was intriguing and just plain fun!












After I got the blocks done, it was time to tackle the green inner sashes and triangle corners.... Candi from Leah's was able to provide me with the necessary information for the size of those green sashes .... so I did not have to guess.

I owe her....BIG TIME!!

I cut, and I cut and I cut....












And this is ALL I had left when I had enough of them cut. As in, I couldn't have come up with one more, if my life had depended on it. Whew!

Next the little triangles for each corner were to be cut. The instructions mentioned some sort of fancy ruler for triangles which would make triangle that were the perfect size. I glanced up at my wall, because I knew I had a triangle ruler up there that I had bought YEARS ago (in Texas, I think), and I wondered if by chance I could figure out the size and use it as a guide...
















Well, I'll be hornswaggled... It was a Marty Michell ruler and the exact size I needed was clearly marked on it.


The sun shined on me, the birds sang, the choirs joined in.... It was one of those "I don't believe it" moments.... That ruler has hung there ever since I bought it, back in the day, swearing "this will come in handy one day, I'm sure!"












So my triangles got cut, and here's the first of the 16 completely finished big blocks.












Fifteen to go, and sashing.....and a border. "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!"

:)

3 comments:

Karene said...

WOW !!! You did a FANTASTIC JOB on those squares!!! I think the three amigos will have three different Sat Samplers....how funny ! I like your extra blocks too. Very, very nice. Can't wait to see this one finished !

Yvette said...

I know you can, I know you can, I know you can!!!!

A bell went off when I read your blog. I have that ruler too! I think I bought it at Road to California along with the book. See, now you know why I must clean sewing room today. LOL!

I will keep checking back, I am awaiting a pic of all these blocks put together.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that is awesome!! I love sampler quilts, and yours is so beautiful!! I know you can do it before the FedEx truck arrives!! You do such great work - even if you did sew the wrong side of the triangles the first time!! It's going to be lovely.