Preparing these quilt pieces has taken a lot longer than I thought. Of course, I’ve done this lots of times before, but I never really kept track of how much time I spent (since I didn’t have blog deadlines).
First, I only had enough of the smallest size salesman sample triangles for half of the 1,300 total printed triangles required, which meant I had to resort to the little pieces bin where I keep all my vintage scraps that are around 2″ or smaller. These are not sorted by color, so it takes a while to sift through the mess to find the the right color and size. This container is a lot deeper than it looks.
I want to end up with similar amounts of the different colors (mainly red, blue, green, lavender, yellow & pink — plus smaller amounts of teal, orange, navy, black & brown). If I can’t find enough of one color, I have to go to my bins of larger vintage scraps. I just hate to cut into a big scrap for a little triangle.
Next I starch, press, draw, cut and sort all of the triangles into color groups. Then I spread out one color group at a time and make subgroups of 4 triangles for each pinwheel. I also hand cut each white triangle, but I do these as I go since they don’t need to be sorted.
I pin each little 4-triangle group together and put them in piles.
Then I start chain piecing the pinwheels together. I’ve finished the first row, but I’m stuck on the second row since I am just finishing up H (the most time-consuming block so far) and I haven’t done F or I either. Now that the triangles are cut, I need to get back to embroidering — of course, now I wish I had stitched the letters in order.
Cat Update: Lynn reminded me that I never said anything else about the cat attack. By the time I went to the doctor, my right hand was huge and my left arm was also a mess. She gave me a 5-min. IV drip plus an injection. I was fine within a couple of days, but I had to take the unpleasant Augmentin for 10 days. Jack had to spend that night outside in his little cardboard house — we have since made up. Cat wounds are not to be taken lightly.
Martha, I am so humbled when I see what you accomplish! I wish I had a smidge of your talent, but more importantly, a tiny bit of your ambition to complete projects! I tend towards procrastination and that is not a good thing!
Oh, your fabrics are gorgeous!
I’m pleased to hear your hand is better, and that Jack has behaved since. 🙂 xoxo
I’m glad to hear your hand and arm are ok. I couldn’t get to your blog the other night for some weird reason — the message kept telling me I didn’t have permission on this server. That was with both Firefox and IE. Anyway, your fabric looks so pretty. I can’t wait to see this quilt when it’s all finished.
We have this in common – both working on quilts with vintage fabric and thousands of pieces! But you will have yours done about forty years before me… I’m making a mini bow-tie quilt by hand. The blocks are 3″ and there are over 700 of them (I have 200 done). It makes a GREAT take along project, and that’s good ’cause I will be taking it along for some time to come. 🙂
It is going to be fun to see yours take shape. I love those cheery fabrics!
Sorry about your injury – I had NO IDEA about cat bites! I’m glad you are well.
Ann
So many triangles!!! I want to scoop both hands into the big bin of scraps. I can imagine color-sorting that bin for hours on a cold rainy fall day, kind of like meditation.