SMS MBOM January

I got the January block done the day before the February one came out, so technically I'm keeping up!

I enjoyed doing this one, although I put the left-hand strips in upside down so ended up with a larger piece of grey in the top left corner instead a triangle of the blue dot - took me ages to figure out what I'd done wrong! I had to shift the position of the two last strips quite drastically to get things to work out - I consistently seem to have this problem with these blocks and I'm really not sure if it's me or the pattern. This time it was to such a degree that I have no idea what happened. One thing that I'm becoming increasingly unhappy about with this BOM is the wastage of fabric. I cut a huge amount off the edges of this block, and that's fabric that possibly won't get used up in anything else. As someone at the AMQG meeting last night pointed out when I complained about this, when fabric is just a few dollars a yard in the States perhaps wastage doesn't matter but damn, it's not that cheap here! I'm also becoming increasingly unsure as to whether these will make even a vaguely decent-looking quilt when they're all put together. Oh well, it's an interesting process and I'm learning all sorts of things! I think that if I ever do another one though, I'll pick something that has been designed to make a single quilt, rather than a random assortment of different styles.

SMS MBOM November and December

Happy New Year! Here's to a happy and successful 2012 (and not too many times of putting 2011 by mistake on documents).

I finally got to the latest SMS MBOM blocks. November's was pretty easy all in all, I didn't have any problems with getting the 12.5" square out of the piece like I'd feared. I quite like it now that it's done, I wasn't sure if I would but as always I really like the fabrics I chose which probably influences my feelings considerably!



The December one was interesting because I haven't done any paper piecing before. It wasn't too difficult but I had issues with flipping over the fabric and paper without the fabric shifting as I tried to put it under the presser foot. I'm assuming that comes with experience!



Unfortunately with this one things didn't line up properly across that middle seam - if I had a slightly larger seam allowance they'd all match perfectly but I can't increase it because it would make the block more like 12" wide instead of the (very) scant 12.5" it is now. If I did it again I would cut the right-hand strips a little longer so I had more wiggle room. This seems to be an ongoing issue for me with these blocks, there just isn't the latitude in the pattern to allow for slight imperfections in cutting and variations in a seam allowance of even a few millimeters. I can't even square the thing up - not that this one needs it really but some of the others do!

SMS MBOM October

An interesting block to do because it's skewed when you cut it down, but as the pattern indicates, rather wasteful of background fabric. It was doubly wasteful when I discovered that I seem to have sewn my seams just under 1/4" so the big block of white was too small and I had to recut a longer one. Even then it's not perfect because the bottom left corner of the dark grey fabric is cut off. I'm just surprised I was that much off with my seams, but it's a new 1/4" foot and perhaps I've not adjusted it properly. Anyways, it 90% worked and with any luck the bit I had to replace will be used up in a future block; and once it's sewn into something the corner would have looked cut-off anyways.

Here they all are (so far) together - they're starting to look like something!

SMS MBOM September

Ack, it's been a bit quiet around here lately! I think I'm suffering a bit from having so many things to do I don't know where to start and consequently don't do anything - my instinctive reaction to stress and not exactly the best way to cope with it! So instead of painting the rooms I've painted a side table and instead of tackling larger sewing projects I've done another Sew Mama Sew MBOM block and some stuffed animal sleeping bags (photos when finished). And no, none are indicative of starting small and working my along that way - they're all avoidance behaviour! As is Pinterest, Instagram and the internet in general...

Source: ravelry.com via Hazelnuts on Pinterest

This was a super-challenging block for me as I've never done triangles before and the instructions were a bit vague when it came to piecing the angles together. After a few false starts and unripped seams I got there! Though oddly, the top and bottom strips are too small - I'm sure I cut them right, but something happened somewhere so I'll have to cut longer strips and do that bit over.



And all three blocks so far



I'm generally not a huge fan of quilts with random blocks (I'd be hopeless in many bees for this reason), but so far I think I'll like it, and I guess given that there will only be 12 blocks in it I'll duplicate a few of my favourites to make it a good size. I like the scrappy wonky block the best but who knows what blocks are to come! If we're going to be covering a variety of techniques then I'm guessing there will be a circle and some curves (eek! might have to investigate this Curve Master foot), some stacking and cutting...a dresden plate or something like that? What do you think is still to come?

Sew Mama Sew BOM

I finally caved and started following along with the Sew Mama Sew 'Modern Block of the Month'. I wasn't going to but August's block looked so interesting I had to try! So I did July's first just to do it all right and proper-like :)

That was easy, but August - well that was a challenge! The cutting of the strips was fine, but assembling them was a lot harder than I'd expected from a technical standpoint, not so much the 'artistic' one. I had a bunch of pieced strips that were somewhat shorter than the others because of the combinations of the first lot of strips I'd chosen (randomly cut and different widths), and that made piecing a bit hard. If I were to do it again I'd definitely try and make sure the strips were roughly equal in length. Anyways, I was unsure whether it was going to pull together and look like a block instead of a random assortment of unevenly sewn bits until I'd squared it up and suddenly bing! And it looks even better with the borders:



I'm quite excited about how they look together already!

Looking forward to next month's!

ETA: Fabrics are: Amy Butler Full Moon Polka in Slate, Simon + Kabuki Juicy Blossoms Bubbles in Pewter, Dena Designs Taza Geo in Neutral  and Kona Snow