January NewFO Time - Arctic Star

I am so excited to start a new quilt and have been showing you peeks of the fabrics etc. It wasn't hard to go with the colours of the original quilt, I mean look at this pic....penguins are just meant to be teamed up with blue and grey.

{source - Design Seeds}

The pattern I am working on comes from Homespun,an Australian publication, and this pattern is in the October 13 issue. I have been working on the project for the month of January so not all of this post content was done in one day.....I am not that diligent!

Week 1

Being a lazy weekend around here, I decided to start cutting my fabrics.  Generally I am really
BAD and tend to not read any instructions but instead I just look at the picture, glance at square sizes and start cutting - following the diagram (as above) - but to find how big the squares are for this quilt, I had to really look for them in the instructions which meant, for once, I did do some reading and then I just got totally confused.  Excitement was turning to consternation at this point.

Whaaaaaaat? I don't understand......oh, they want you to twice cross cut squares to make  triangles to sew to other triangles! Now, I don't know about you but I never sew triangles together. Much rather sew squares diagonally onto the end of rectanges, even if there is some fabric wastage, so I had to make some slight adjustments to the pattern for that part.  Aha, that looks alright! and that wastage I was talking about.....well I have plans for those offcuts later.

Then reading further down for the cutting instructions for the middle of the block I was aghast to be told to cut out teeny tiny 1 3/4 inch squares to sew together to make the 16 patch square block. Wouldn't it be easier to do this using the strip method?

So with the correct measurements jotted down in my journal, I will forget about the instructions at this point and plod ahead with my own methods. I cut 1 3/4 strips, sewed two contrast strips together and then I cut this strip in half  and sewed it together again so that when I cross cut, I had four 1 3/4 inch squares already sewn together.

 and here is my finished 16 patch block ready. I am sure this is a much better method than sewing all those little squares together.

Week 2 
One Arctic Star block complete - 1 down.....15 to go!

but before I continue......I think it is time for some more fabrics

and now I am confident that I have enough of a range to make the blocks interesting. Oh but wait, I have been tempted again.........Ok, now I have enough

And before I knew it, I had 4 blocks which is enough for a row but I am going to resist the temptations to sew this row together until all 16 blocks are done.

Week 3
With a number of blocks finished I decided to turn my attention to the one area that was giving me heart palpitations every time I thought of doing it.  Wavy line sewing!! but first I had to freestyle cut a wavy line through these two layered fabrics (which are Tilda fabrics btw)  EEEEK! better have a steadying cup of coffee first.

If you look closely you will see that I did draw a line because I was worried that I would have an indecisive moment while cutting and make a mess but I actually didn't follow the line once I got going. Oh, the relief of getting it done and it turned out ok.....but now I have to sew the two edges together. Another cup of coffee?

 

 Maybe not......lets just get this done with. The whole time I was sewing the two edges together on the sewing machine, I just couldn't imagine how they would come together ok but LOOK....they did! So now I need to sew the other two pieces and these will become the snowy hills for my appliqued penguins.

Still a fair bit to get done so I must be off to get another block done. I am determined to be more organised to get things done this year so look out for further posts about this project.


I am linking in  to the 2014 New FO Challenge with Barbara's at Cat Patches.  

Also linking in with Lets Book It at Vroomans Quilts

Other posts related to this New FO
The Inspiration
Fabric Choices

Go along and check them out or even think about linking in as well.  The more the merrier!