When I was in ABQ we picked out the pattern & started shopping for the colors. When I returned home, I had the background & border fabric, plus a start on the fabric for the twisted pinwheels (see what the finished quilt will look like--6 bunches of 4 twisting pinwheels with a narrow & broad border). I also had the paint samples my mother had used. If you look closely at the quilt, you might notice that those 24 pinwheels have 14 different fabrics, so it's a fairly scrappy quilt. I wanted to get that variety into this quilt, so went to Hancock Fabric today (which I can't believe I never found before--it's closer than JoAnn!). Hancock also happens to be very close to a big hardware/home improvement store--so everyone in the family can be happy with one 3.5 mile drive down Highway 1. I found 4 more greens that will work with the paint samples I was sent home with; we had trouble finding the greens in ABQ, though the turquoise & reddish/orange fabrics were easy to come by.
I also decided not to use the actual gadget that came with the book my mom found the pattern in...it's quick & easy, but wastes a LOT of fabric. I can't stand that--because any leftovers will get added to my stash! So after a few tries and lots of sewing/unsewing I figured out how to use almost all of the 5" block, rather than lose about 25-30% of that block. To give you an idea, according to the book, a 5" block would end up about 3.25". But my version ends up w/ about 4.5"! That's using the 1/8" mark on the quilting foot.
I like the way the test square came out, but it definitely demonstrates one of my weaknesses: although I consider myself quite visual, I'm not so good at shades. So, the 2 lighter shades, which look pretty different in person, really blend into a double-twisted-pinwheel-blob because they're not different enough. I will definitely get the Roommate to assist with this--he's good at the different shades. In fact, the biggest quilt I ever made (my 2nd) was all sorts of blues & greens. I had the washed/ironed fabric on the back of our futon--and he put them in order by shade gradation, so when he wasn't around I could still keep the quilt going.
It was a good test run, though, and I only need to make six of these squares...this first one took a few hours, so obviously, if I put this one aside as a lesson, I haven't wasted that much time.
What do you learn about yourself from sewing?! Do you have any weaknesses that wouldn't otherwise appear? How do you get around them? Just curious...
