WIP Wednesday: Piece On

Contrary to my post last Wednesday when I was anticipating a binge of quilting to occur - the last week of sewing has been ALL about piecing.

Piecing Station:

I have finished 60 of the 80 blocks needed for Picnic in Serenade on the left side of my design wall and 5 of the 20 blocks needed for Sunny Lanes. They are proving to be a nice complement to each other and instead of using Sunny Lanes as a true leader/ender project I have found it easier to alternate back and forth as I create the parts needed for each.

I am using a handy new ruler which is making my Picnic block construction much less painful and keeping Mr. Ripper out of use. The Folded Corner Clipper by Prairie Sky Quilting is designed to eliminate drawing the lines by trimming the corner before you sew. I was having issues getting pinked edges of jelly rolls to "behave" while piecing these sub units but this ruler allows me to clearly see that both fabrics are aligned properly before cutting. Having that trimmed edge to follow while sewing makes a huge difference in accuracy for me.

You can use the same technique with an Easy Angle ruler but I found all the markings to be distracting when I tried mine. And I am very careful to lay out my fabrics in the same way so I don't cut them incorrectly!

The parts for Sunny Lanes were all jumbled together in my bin so I've spent a fair amount of time sorting them out and calculating how many 4 patches and HSTs I still need to make. To complicate matters I had less than a yard left of the Moda Marbles background fabric so I was rather nervous as to whether I had enough. Turns out I had made too many 4 patches and not nearly enough HSTs but I'm quite sure I have enough fabric at this point. Whew!

I'm a big fan of the Eleanor Burns Quilt in a Day Triangle Square ruler for making quick work of trimming HSTs to the proper size. I love HSTs and have found over the years that trimming saves me a lot of headaches in block construction later. This technique allows you to trim before pressing so you only trim 2 sides instead of 4. Periodically I use my 4.5" square ruler to check my finished blocks to make sure I'm on track. Assembling Path & Styles in Thimbleberries earlier this month was an excellent reminder to keep my sub units the correct size.

I've decided I might as well finish piecing the last 20 blocks for Picnic in Serenade and the rest of the HSTs and 4 patches for Sunny Lanes while I'm in the groove... even though that means pushing my quilting projects out at least another day. As long as I'm working on UFOs in one way or another in the end it will all even out right?

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday@Freshly Pieced.

Sunday Stash and Tools Too

These happy little packets of fun arrived in the mail this week. An email from Pink Chalk Fabrics got me clicking a while back... it's hard to resist a Scrap Bundle of fabrics (according to their website 3 to 3.5 yards) on sale for $9.95. Looking at their site today, I obviously wasn't the only buyer as their scrap bags are sold out!

I've been wanting to add some solids to my stash for my paper piecing BoM and to start mixing them in on my new projects. I'm still more into prints but my appreciation for solids is growing. Here are the contents of one scrap bag... a really nice mix of colors. Some are 1/4 yard cuts, some pieces are large rectangles just shy of FQ size and a few smaller lengths. Perfect for my intended use!

And a nice mix of prints in one of the other bags too. It will be fun to throw some new scraps into the mix when I start my next scrappy project. The other bags are just as yummy- I can recommend these without hesitation! Once they are back in stock of course.

I also had a large box arrive this week (I'm catching up on UFO Reward shopping) and I have to say my heart sank because I knew it wasn't large enough to ship the contents flat. Please excuse my crappy photo but I was in documenting shipping damage mode vs. pretty blog photo mode when taking it!

After about 36 hours of this treatment...

and another day of sitting on my cutting table underneath my old cutting mat it is thankfully flat, oh so pretty and I can't wait to cut some dark fabrics with ease on the yellow side of this Martelli mat. My eyes just aren't what they used to be!

I'm also going to give the Martelli rotary cutter a try. And since I was taking advantage of a sale I added a couple of my favorite Creative Grids rulers in sizes I don't have to the order. I have to say... I just LOVE the redesign since I last bought rulers! I've included an old one in the lower left for comparison. The new markings are so easy to read (do I sound like I'm getting older by the minute?). 

I just might have to replace a few of my most used rulers now too... kudos to a company for taking a product I already love using to a new level of WOW!

So that's what's new in my quilting room this week (lucky, lucky me!) and here is a peek at what I'm working on today. Scrappy Snowball is next on the UFO Finish list. As much as I'd rather be playing with my new tools it's time to quilt.

Happy Sunday sewing everyone! I'm linking up to Sunday Stash@Sew ET.