When Needs Must....

I'm slowly assembling a set of Shop Hop blocks that my daughter's mother-in-law (thanks, Gail) brought me this summer.  The one I was working on was a spider web pattern and you needed to cut the segments into  60 degrees triangles.  Somehow I used the wrong ruler and came up with an octogon -LOL, and since I didn't  catch it until I was trying to assemble the block --Yikes!.  Got to remember that saying:  Measure twice, cut once.  With no extra material, I had to fix it or go missing a block.  So I assembled 4 segments and cut a straight diameter, did the same with the 4 others, and sewed the two sections together.  Then I got a piece of paper and placed the octogon on top of it and drew the shape of it.  I then cut out each piece around the shape in the background and got this.  It was only after I ironed it that I noticed one piece was wrong side out.  Well it stays that way now!  Putting the ruler over it to cut out a 8 1/2" square I saw I had to add a few more pieces to have enough background to do so.  Good thing I've made a ton of crumb blocks - that experience came in handy for this one.  So I finally cut it and came up with the block.  It ain't perfect, and isn't exactly centered (something I forgot to do when I was

drawing the paper pattern), but now I feel I just may

be able to attempt a Ruth McDowell block. I look forward to that!

PS:  you'll see this and others on my Design wall next monday.

Design Wall Monday 8/23

Actually, this is coming off my design wall as I finally appliqued the border, sandwiched it, and quilted it.  Here is my new Koi Fish Bowl which I first put up on the wall on 8/2.  This was a Connecting Threads kit I got a few years ago and so it is UFO#14 done.  Dang, I have to learn to make better circles.  Someone said to use avery circle labels - I'll have to look into that, otherwise, I'm happy with it.  I'll have it out in October as it is the right colors even though I am not a "Halloween" person myself.  You can't see it, but the border lines are completed by the quilting - I repeated the corners with just quilting lines duplicating the curve of the bias line.  And here's the back:

There's a short story about it.  I bought the material at a yard sale.  Found it in a pile of clothes - it was a scrubs top.  I liked the fabric so much I went ahead and bought the top for 25 cents.  The back was just the right size for this project which happens to be 18" square.  I like both sides of this one.

Sunflower or ?

Did it again - got the "change" bug and made a few changes to a quilt block and came up with my version of sunflower.  The original has white space in the four corners so that there are really only 2 petals in each side and the center is a square.  Then to avoid adding another ufo to my mountain of ufos, I went ahead and finished it into a table topper.  I'm not too thrilled with it.  Since I added a black inner border, I think I should have had dark binding also. But it turned out to be a light green because that was what I used on the backing and I brought it forward to form the binding.  For the backing I was able to use up another orphan block so that makes this ufo#15. I think I like the back better.

I showed it to my husband and he quips up:    "Oh a worm hole!"     Ay ya yi - back to the drawing board.