The Story Can Now Be Told

For the better part of a year I have been closely guarding a secret.  When Joan Ford started her new book, she asked me to contribute to it.  

Recently published, Joan's book includes a section on hand piecing by--wait for it--ME!  See pages 57-59.  And Joan included a hand piecing project in the back of the book which is so darn cute and combines both hand piecing and hand applique!  There is a ton of useful information in this book--truly something for everyone!  Check it out!  Thanks, Joan, for including me!

We've all seen them, all coveted them, and ultimately bought them.  Yes, those Clover Wonder Clips!  I have the original small red, the longer green, and the newly-released short neons!  For easy access, I tossed them onto a small old Syracuse China plate.  Don't they look festive?

And here is where they reside:  on my windowsill between a pink depression glass dish of coated paperclips and a Fiestaware knockoff of uncoated paperclips and small runs of staples.  Notice the runner under these lovelies--it's an older design of Joan Ford's.  My absolute favorite for narrow places.
 

That's what's new in my world tonight.  What's new with you?  Please share in the comments!  Many thanks to those who take time to comment--it makes my day!

Blissful hugs,
Sharon

A Touch of Red

Brown and white...and a touch of red.

Blissful hugs,
Sharon

The Process

It doesn't just happen, you know.  Many erroneously believe that a finished class sample (or anything else) just magically happens in one go.  Not so much.  Here's a look at the dilemma of choosing fabric for another sample of my Mariner's Compass Bliss.

These are all batiks.  It is a lime green around the center circle, but it doesn't show well in the pics, but does in the finished center.  The big dilemma was the background.  I had chosen a background (seen in the last two pictures) and was trying to decide if I really wanted to use it or if it would be too busy.  So I hedged my bets and bought this dark navy, thinking I would like it better.

In the first picture, it looks like it will be okay, but in real light, the purple was almost invisible.

So I cut some light turquoise small star points and started laying them in.  Not sure...

I cut all 16 of them and laid them in.  Still not quite right.  My problem stems from choosing the design fabrics to go with the busy background.

Still not quite willing to commit to this large a project and not be sure, I hand pieced this smaller star (this finishes at 8 inches, the larger one in the other pictures finishes at 20 inches).  My main concern was that the background fabric was so busy and sort of directional that I wasn't sure how it would look when pieces met in such a random fashion. The only way to determine that was to piece a star that is set into a circle.  I rather like this and decided that that was my original plan and I should just get a move on.

So...I cut (re-cut) all the background pieces and the corners and laid them into the pattern.  The lighting when I took this picture makes everything look washed out.  Trust me that these colors are very vibrant.  The picture above is more true to color.  I am happy.  I have the yellow points added to the circle and small points and have started piecing the pie shapes.  I'll show you progress as I go.  Hand piecing...feel the bliss!

I did cut all the setting pieces for this quilt so that I know how much more fabric I have to work with.  I'm pretty conservative about my fabric usage but I did have one quilt I did a while ago where I had to fit the last few pieces onto a very small piece of fabric and I couldn't buy more.  Scared me enough to make every inch count!

That's it for tonight.  It is so cold here that I can hear the house popping.  It's fun to take empty pop bottles (with caps on) out on a night like this--they snap, crackle and pop and compress themselves.  When warm again, they pop back into shape!  It's especially fun the first time it happens and you don't know about it and you have them in the car and things start popping!  Just sayin'!

Blissful hugs,
Sharon

P.S.  I just finished listening to Mean Streak by Sandra Brown and started Pegasus by Danielle Steele.