The devil is in the details- Girl Skipping Rope take 2

     After 3 days of sewing, unsewing, design tweaking, and re-working an entire section, the first paper-pieced block I've ever designed and drafted on my own is done.  So much work never went into a 10-inch block!  
     Meet Ginger:

    

She's more than a little patchy- a testament to my lack of paper-piecing skills.  The head section was the part I had to tweak.  Those pesky y-seams!  The second incarnation was done without them, and came out much neater.  There are a few other spots that didn't need to be chopped up so much, but I wasn't looking at the big picture when I was piecing, and then the block came out a rectangle.  For me, squaring up meant adding fabric, not trimming back! 
    Nevertheless, I think she turned out well (I can't bring myself to refer to her as an inanimate object.  We spent too much time together).  I'm very sad to see her go (as are my children), but this week she'll be on her way to her new home in Melbourne, Australia.  Hope you like her, Jane! 
     Next month's Piece Bee With You block shouldn't be so much of a struggle for me now that I've got one under my belt.  Some takeaways from constructing Ginger:

• The first sketch should not be the final draft
• Draft the design using squares, rectangles and triangles.  Here I did the opposite- chopping the design up into squares, rectangles and triangles, which resulted in umpteen teeny pieces
• Avoid y-seams if at all possible
• Know the targeted block size beforehand
• Measure twice, cut once (an oldie but goodie)

Just for fun, here is a pictorial history of Ginger's progression (first blogged here):

girl skipping rope

     Oh my sainted aunt!  I jumped in feet first with this block!  For the Piece Bee With You October block, I sketched out this for Jane, who requested girls in dresses.  All those tiny pieces- what was I thinking?  I'll tell you what I was thinking... I fell in love with the sketch and knew she had to be made.  So post her in the swap's Flickr pool I did, to make it official.  Now I'm committed.
     See how nicely the lower half of her body came out?

 She was easy, until I got to her upper extremities.  So many teeny pieces of fabric to maneuver through my beloved, if temperamental, machine.  There are a couple of places where y-seams are required- putting those newly acquired skills to use (though still in the process of trying to master them).  Because of this, and the teensy weensy pieces in the top third of the block, a few bulky spots were unavoidable.  I'm hoping that the recipient will love her so much that she won't notice :)
   p.s. I unintentionally worked some Denyse Schmidt's Katie Jump Rope into the block.  I was looking for green in my stash to represent grass, and this was the only thing that could pass.  How neat is that?

Letting go- sort of

     I have made my first ever improvisational block.  It took most of the day yesterday because little K is in this phase of needing me to be right there alongside him.  Or he needs to be a part of whatever I'm doing.  Not good when I'm trying to sew- he's tends to make a grab at all of the pointy tools.
     Working without a pattern was a wonderful experience- very liberating.  I must confess, however, that I thought making improv blocks would be quick and easy.  Not so- there was a lot of forethought and "unsewing" in the production of this block.  I wanted to make sure that the fabrics were balanced throughout.  I also had to have a crash course in Y seams (thank goodness for youtube).  I'm very happy with the results, but I fear the little blue and white striped triangle in the bottom right corner is going to be swallowed by sashing.     
    Anyway, without further ado, here's Dustin's Red X block for the Design Camp [think outside the block] Swap:

    It was great to work with fabrics I normally don't work with in my projects (although the brown herringbone came from my stash).  The older kids saw the unfinished block on the table yesterday when they came home from school.  They both LOVE the fabrics, and when I told them it was for someone else they were sorely disappointed.  Little momma even went so far as to suggest that I go out and buy all the same fabric and make a quilt for us! 
     I feel inspired to quilt fabric other than quilting fabric.  I kept a pile of the hubby's work shirts that were marked for donation, thinking I would make them into a quilt.  I hear them calling my name.