Progress on my Bali Wedding Star

If you had told me in March that I would only today complete "phase 1" of the paper piecing for this quilt top... I would never have started this project!  No, I don't work on it daily and sometimes I have weeks that I don't touch it but still...   I signed up for this Judy Niemeyer pattern/class at one of our local quilt shops.   I have another of her patterns in my sewing studio for YEARS but the 40 pages of instructions always left me a little unsure about jumping in even though I am an experienced paper piecer.  When I saw this class was offered over 3 sessions/ 1 per month I thought this would be a perfect chance to work with the pattern and I would meet people since I am new to the area.  The quilt shop also offers a "sew in" on Fridays.   Perfect.  My plan was to sew on Fridays and have this complete @ the end of 3 months.   It was my intention to leave this all in my travel stuff... work on it on  Fridays and then those classroom times on Saturdays.  Wrong.   I really needed my sewing room to spread out at the cutting board, ironing board and sewing machine plus 1 day only gets about 1 strip set done.

Finally, I have all the strip sets completed and ready to move onto the next steps.  We did complete one of all the components in class so we know what/how to complete the quilt.  11 strips sets comprised of A and B units, 8 sets of each strip set for a total of 176 strip sets.   If you have paper pieced, you know that more time is spent at the ironing board and cutting table than at the actual sewing machine.   I think this is the worst of it and everything else is going to sew up faster.   I hope!

I also was never even sure all my colors would work well together but they seem to be playing together OK.  


Each strip set has an A and B arc.  When I know final placement, those "white" papers will get one of the 4 colors for the setting units.  I chose an orange, pink, teal and black for my setting colors.


These are the next units I will work on.  4 colorways for each section.


Trimmings from today.

An example of what the  completed units will look like.



Both the boys and Kricket decided yesterday that I must be lonely in my sewing studio so they brought their DS games in and joined me.   Ahhhh, that was sweet.


This is Block 3 that I worked on last week while traveling.   Not washed or blocked yet.   I've got the bug and can't wait to get started on the next Brutus block from Bronwyn Hayes.   I started this project in Hawaii and have not touched it since I returned 2 summers ago!!!!


Meanwhile, there are quilts waiting to be quilted.  Back to work.







Comments

Nancy said…
This is going to be very striking, so worth the work I'm sure. But I can relate to your tale... I am an expert "underestimator" of how much time any project will take. The embroidery block is so appealing. I'll check out that site.
Lynette said…
oh! That Wedding Star is going to be absolutely stunning.