Swimming Upstream

Sometimes projects feel like they've unionized against you.  First I ran out of the ribbon I was using for the Fiesta dress.  Okay, I found a likely match and ordered it and moved to cutting out and sewing the Cape Island dress.  Only to discover that the vintage Singer underbraider and quilting foot that were supposed to work for applying soutache braid... for some reason don't.

So I sighed and ordered a modern braiding foot.  Or thought I did.  I hand-stitched the soutache to the short bodice seams and the sleeve hems.  Two days later realized I hadn't actually hit the "confirm order" button on the website.  So the foot won't be here for another week.

But!  The replacement ribbon for the Fiesta dress has arrived today, and it's a match, so I can continue on with that dress, and after it's finished, cut something else out of this floral (I'm hoping to get four distinct dresses out of this bit of yardage) to move on with in the meantime.

In real life news, Squiddle is twelve today!  One of the two best things I've ever made.  And for his birthday, the school district gave him (and the two other boys in his grade that live in our housing tract) a bus stop he can actually walk to!  So between that and Jazzy being literally picked up and dropped off from our house, I am practically a lady of leisure once I've got them off to school each day.  That said, the early mornings to get them to school are still doing me in.  I've had to take a nap every day so far....

August's Block Party

It's the first day of school, and the house is so... quiet.  (Bar the Roomba whirring away downstairs.)  I am 1.5 loads of laundry into today's 4.5 loads and have been up since stupid o'clock because sometimes your body needs to use the facilities in the middle of the night and won't let you get back to sleep and finally, half an hour before your alarm, you decide "F--- it, I might as well get some work done."

That being said, I am planning on skipping today's meeting of the Gig Harbor Quilt Guild.  I haven't been all summer because children at home, but (a) I haven't completed the blocks for today's meeting activity, and (b) Squiddle now starts and ends school 45 minutes earlier and his bus stop is NOT one he can safely walk home from.  (It involves crossing the highway twice.  I am not pleased with the school transportation district over this.)  So I don't want to risk being late.

Instead, I plan to cut out another doll dress (I ran out of ribbon for the Fiesta dress I was making, and must wait for more to arrive), possibly vacuum, possibly scrub a bathroom clean, and/or possibly finish the newest chapter of my fanfic.  In the meantime, here is the Block Party pattern I gave the Quilters by the Bay for this month:

10 1/2” Framed Ohio Star

For each block, cut:

• Four 2 1/2” squares white or white-base background fabric
• Six 2 7/8” squares white or white-base background fabric, cut once diagonally
• Four 2 7/8” squares green fabric, cut once diagonally
• Two 2 7/8” squares of yellow fabric, cut once diagonally
• Two 1 1/2” x 8 1/2” rectangles green fabric
• Two 1 1/2” x 10 1/2” rectangles green fabric

(Alternately, the half-square triangles can be cut from 2 1/2” strips using an Easy Angle or equivalent ruler. The star points can also be constructed as Flying Geese, using the same method.)

To make the block:

Sew each green or yellow triangle to a white triangle, stitching along the bias/hypotenuse/long edge. Press the seams toward the colored part of the square and trim all dog ears.

Lay out the squares as in the image above, with the green fabric making the star points, and the yellow fabric making the center of the block. Sew together in rows. Press seams as desired. Tip: pressing each row’s seams in the opposite direction of the row next to it will help them nest better! Stitch the rows together and press the long seams as desired.

Attach the 1 1/2” x 8 1/2” rectangles to opposite sides of the block. Press seams outward. Attach the 1 1/2” x 10 1/2” rectangles to the remaining sides. Press seams outward. Square to 10 1/2”.

Bring up to ten blocks to the guild’s monthly meeting to enter into the Block Party drawing.