I fell down the rabbit hole and started the Moda BlockHeads 3 quilt-along. Although I still have one quilt that needs finished and another that hasn’t been started–still in the bag that the kit came in. (I don’t think that one counts as an unfinished project!)

I had been watching the comments on FB for the blockheads group. Lots of complaining about how difficult the blocks were. So I decided to jump in just to see how hard these blocks really were. I’m using the “Spotted” fabric from Zen Chic that I had left over from another quilt.

I also am following the Zen Chic designer Brigette Heitland’s quilt layout. It’s a “mystery” layout that she is revealing as she goes along. But it seems to have an ombré theme so I hope I love it!

The designers are offering 6”, 8”, and 12” finished sizes. Some are even giving instructions for a 4” block. And because I have a lot going on outside my sewing room, I went with the 12” finished size—12 1/2” unfinished. The bigger the pieces—the easier and quicker! Plus I have a 12 1/2″ template. That makes my quilting life just a bit easier!

Since I am making the 12” finished blocks, I only need about 35 blocks to make a twin size quilt. I still want to make all 56 but they won’t all be in the final quilt. I have other projects in mind!

The first three blocks all have a star theme.

I spray starched the fabric before starting. It does make things a bit more precise especially when there are so many triangles. Fabric cut on the bias tends to get a little wonky.

The first block wasn’t too bad. I just had to be very precise with all those seams and points. The designer was Corey Yoder of Coriander Quilts and the block is called “Star Chain”.

The next block was “Sunshine Star” from Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life and it was relatively easy. While I’m trying to follow Brigette Heitland’s fabric choices in her blocks to get the ombre look, I do not have a lot of the yellows, oranges, and browns left. So I’m substituting white where possible. It’s a Kona Cotton from Robert Kaufman. I like using a lot of white anyhow. I think it makes quilts look fresh and modern!

Block 3 was another story. I had lots of issues with it. “Crown and Star” comes to us from Betsy Chutchian.

Mistakes were made:

Lesson learned from the first block was to use a scant 1/4″ while making the blocks to get the necessary finished size. The first doesn’t quite make it to 12 1/2″. I thought I was being very accurate on my cutting and stitching–but maybe not so much!

Jack the ripper was employed a few times. If I’m going to make a stupid sewing mistake, it’s when I’m chain stitching. Invariably, I will put a right side with a wrong side or stitch the wrong pieces together and not realize it until after the “chain” is done and I’m at the ironing board.

While spray starching on my busy Saturday afternoon I grabbed my Temporary Basting Spray and happily sprayed both sides of the pieces. I didn’t realize the error until I thought that the smell wasn’t quite right. What! Quick! To the sink for a rinse and then down to the laundry room for a wash and dry cycle. I kept all my quilting supplies like templates, rotary cutter, basting spray, iron, and spray starch on top of a shelf right by my pressing station. Lesson learned! The basting spray is now living on the other side of the room with the fabric glues.

And then the third block. This block should have been no more difficult than the first block–lots of pieces but doable. Here’s the first version that I cut out:

I was stitching away when I realized something wasn’t quite right! I only had enough of the black to do the center star. And discovered I had cut the the blocks to the wrong size. So I had to go back and pick new colors and slice and dice them again. And I repeated the same error–more wrong size blocks. I’d say I didn’t have enough sleep that morning but I screwed this up on two different days! Anyhow. I finished it.

Mindfulness

I’ve been trying to work on mindfulness. I found this article about mindfulness interesting. “Mindfulness is moment-to-moment awareness”. If I was more “mindful” I would probably not misplace my glasses, my phone, my coffee cup. I am practicing saying out loud “I am placing my glasses to the right of my yoga mat so I can step on it when I practice my sun salutations”, “I am purposely storing my phone under two tablets and a book”, “I put my coffee cup right here behind the sewing machine so the coffee would get cold and I will notice the cup two days later.”

Now I’m going to say that I almost forgot how peaceful and mindful quilting is. I’m sure I have friends out there that think cutting fabric up in tiny bits and pieces and stitching them back together is their definition of insanity. For me it is almost zen. Too deep? I’ve recently taken on a wee bit too much in my life. All things I want to do but recently it’s been a bunch too much meeting the expectations of my many causes. And I want to do more! I was starting to be very sad. When I reached into my stash of fabrics for the first block and started cutting those bits, I calmed down. Didn’t even realize it until I was in the middle of sewing bliss. All is good!