Blood, sweat and sewing

The birthday fabric got all cut up and a few little swirly hexies got made. I realized I cut up the wrong white fabric after I had already done it. That kinda sucked. It looks ok, but it was going to be white on white polka dots. I'll save that for later I suppose.

I had tried the Jaybird Quilts hexagon pattern before and failed miserably. Nothing was lining up right at all. Turns out offsetting pieces doesn't work for me. This time I cut the corners off of all the pieces and its done wonders! Its an extra step that is a bit tedious, but well worth it if it comes together without me throwing a rotary cutter through a window.

Since I got an extra day off this week I spent the whole day ironing and cutting for the KQAL. I was laying it all out and not quite digging the pattern or colors I had picked. I consulted the stash and pulled a few greens and liked it even better. Then I remembered I had favorited a picture on flickr of a different style kaleidoscope and changed it to that. Unfortunately, I had already cut up a good number of triangles and strips to later be cut into triangles. I cut the strips in half and grabbed them at random to sew them together. Then, I went back and cut out the wedges. Its a bit more scrappy than I usually do, but waste not want not.

To do the actual piecing I use a highly advanced system. I call it the shake and grab.

If there are repeats I throw it back in and try again. Did that blow your mind?

Here are the 4 blocks that I got done today. You can kind of see the scrappy pieces in there. So far I'm totally digging this. I think the man child will be able to grow with this as well. There are so many polka dots in it because he goes nuts for them any time we are at the fabric store.

In my frantic excitement of extra sewing time I sliced my finger open I could probably stand to get some surgi-glue on that beast, but ehh. I bleed for my craft! I'm a hardcore quilter! My quilt group would be named like a metal band. Sewing For My Sorrows While My Machine Lay Dying. We could applique bats or gargoyles on everything and whine about other crafters not really understanding us. Oh wait, that much angst is only tolerated while in your teens. Damn.