Interlude: String Pieced Stars

After the concentrated effort of making my daughter a dress for the Regency Ball, I felt like relaxing with Something Completely Different. I've had a hankering for string-pieced stars ever since seeing Bonnie Hunter's Out On a String! , so today I pulled out my drawer of strips, strings, and crumbs, and had a go at it.

It had occurred to me that having a diamond shaped template might speed up the process of preparing the foundation papers, so the last time I was at the quilt store I bought Set E of Marti Mitchell's Perfect Patchwork templates. I traced the large diamond onto the scraps of pattern tracing paper left over from making the dress. Using the flip and sew method, I string-pieced the diamonds and then trimmed them down, using the template and a rotary cutter.

I like the fact that her templates have tiny holes to mark where the stitching lines end, but I found that cutting around the diamond template with the rotary cutter was more difficult than I expected. . I had trouble holding it motionless, and I think that if I had done more than the eight diamonds needed for a single block, my fingers would have become cramped and sore. I think it's actually easier on my hands to cut an accurate diamond using my ordinary Omnigrid ruler. But then I wouldn't have those nice little corner holes which will probably make the actual piecing much easier.

I can't imagine how people use the rotary cutter for some of her smaller template pieces such as the tiny diamond for the 6 inch 8-Pointed Star block.

I'll finish this block tomorrow, and then get back to work on the summer dresses for my granddaughters and my Carolina Crossroads quilt. By the way, here are the bits left over after trimming the diamonds. Finally -- scraps small enough to throw away! (Or are there one or two worth saving?)

It's Done!

It's done! It's Done! It's done!

The Empire Dress I was sewing for my daughter to wear to the Regency Ball at WorldCon is at last complete despite such unexpected (but always inevitable) disasters as having to take apart and resew a completed French seam. Not to mention the last minute run to Jo Ann's for more elastic.

I wish I could post a picture of it, but as soon as I finished the second hem -- there's an overskirt -- I folded the dress, sealed it in a box, and rushed it to the Post Office. At left is a picture I snapped as I was sewing the casing under the bust.

I was very pleased with my choice of fabrics. The outer layer of the dress is a translucent polyester with tiny white dots and a very subtle crinkly texture. The inner layer is a light peach cotton polyester. (Jo Ann's calls it Symphony Broadcloth.) I was worried it might be too crisp, but it softened up nicely after washing. The combination of fabrics really looks much nicer than it sounds.

Now to clear up the sewing shrapnel from this project. (Am I the only one whose work table looks like an explosion hit it?) Then I'll be able to see my way to clear to working on other projects.

Still Working on the Muslin

Grumble, grumble.

The instructions for this dress (Folkwear 215) are not as clear as they initially seemed.

On the skirt back there are two cutting lines -- one for gauze weight fabrics and one for heavier fabrics. I'm not sure how to define "gauze" or "heavier."

Also, the instructions about gathering the back of the skirt are a little confusing. How is one to gather between the stars marked on the pattern when one set of stars is not actually on the pattern?

Update: Okay, I finally figured out what must have been meant by the cryptic reference to gathering between stars when there's only one star on the pattern piece. But couldn't they at least have told me what size elastic to buy? (As you may have gathered, I don't like experimentation.)

Even more craziness!

Okay, so I've added another project to the ample servings already on my plate.

My daughter, who is going to WorldCon, asked if I could sew her a gown to wear to the Regency Ball. She knew I had a copy of Folkwear's "Empire Dress" (#215) and thought it would be an easy thing to whip up since the simple version has elastic in the neckline, waist and sleeves. I felt a bit intimidated because there would be so little time to put it together and because my daughter lives two states away so fittings would be out of the question. Were I a prudent seamstress, I would have said, "No way, girl!" But instead, I said yes.

I decided to whip up a muslin and then mail it to her so that she can make sure that the bodice fits before I cut into the fashion fabric. And she can also let me know where to hem it. Well, this muslin hasn't gone together as speedily as I'd hoped, but at least I'm working out the pattern's problems now which should make the final version go together much more quickly.

I wonder if I shouldn't have gone with Simplicity 4055 instead? It's the commercial version of Sense & Sensibility's "Regency Gown" which you can see here.

Carolina Crossroads will have to go on the back burner again since the little girl's dresses must also get done before summer is over!

And now, I really must get back to the sewing machine.

Still Working

Bet you thought I'd fallen off the face of the earth! Well, I haven't done much sewing lately, so I haven't had much to write about.

The past few days have been particularly busy. On Thursday I drove my mother to a funeral. On Friday I drove both parents to a wedding. Nothing was scheduled for Saturday, but my mom and I ended up taking my aunt to the Urgent Care because she was experiencing pain every time she took a deep breath. So today I was more than ready for some R&R. I decided to turn on the air conditioning, put on some music, and settle down for some serious work on my Carolina Crossroads quilt.

I've cut and pinned the pieces for thirty more Step 3 Nine-patches! Then I had to stop to cut some more blue strips. Seeking more variety, I was digging through my drawer of blues when it occurred to me that some of my smaller scraps could be used for the 2 5/8 inch squares in Step 4. So I had to stop and cut some of those and then sub-cut them into teensy quarter-square triangles. Whew! Those guys are tiny! And then, of course, I had to put one of the Little Pieced Triangles together just to make sure that my cutting and measuring was accurate.

I guess that's one of the advantages of finishing this quilt after the mystery is complete -- if I get tired of working on one step, I can refresh myself with a brief digression to another. I expect to finish the 30 Nine-patches tonight, having told Fillius Minor to fix his own dinner tonight.

The fabric underneath the CC parts is the gingham I bought to make summer dresses for my three little granddaughters, a.k.a "The Wild Girls." They may be rowdy, but they love to wear dresses. (The white eyelet is for the collars.)

Still More Projects!

Today I visited JoAnn's and bought checked gingham in pale blue, lavender, and mint green to make summer dresses for my little granddaughters. With my mom's help I was able to use coupons for each of the colors. Just what I need, another project!

Blue and White

My quilting buddy's vacation has stretched from it's original two weeks to the point where I've lost track of how long long it's been. We used to meet every Wednesday and put in four or five hours on our quilts. Without that dedicated time in my schedule, I just haven't been able to get much done on my quilt. It's odd, but as much as I love quilting, I sometimes find it hard to stay on task. Last week I decided that I just had to start working again. So I sat down and made ten of these 3 1/2 inch, blue and white Nine-Patches for my Carolina Crossroads quilt.

Last night I did some more piecing, this time combining it with another family activity: reading-aloud. Anyone who's read my other blog knows that everyone in our family is a great reader. And we've always made it a practice to read aloud to one another. Before we had kids, my husband and I read to each other. After the munchkins came along, we read to them too. And we kept on reading to them even after they'd outgrown the age for bedtime stories. Eventually they began to read to us.

Now that the family has dwindled to just myself and Fillius Minor, the custom had fallen into abeyance, but lately we've been trying to revive it in an effort to enliven our quiet evenings. While I pieced Fillius Minor read from Engineers' Dreams by Willy Ley. Published in the '50s, it describes various engineering schemes that never came to fruition, such as constructing a tunnel between England and France or producing energy from the difference in temperatures between the bottom of the ocean and its surface. Listening to the description of these and other projects somehow makes it seem all the more likely that someday my quilt will be done.