Wow! My newly I updated sewing space has really improved my productivity! I just shared a post a couple weeks ago about finishing up some smaller fall projects.
Since then I have tackled a bigger project for the upcoming winter season. My Christmas gift from my mother last year was a kit called “In from the Cold” by Kate Spain and am finally caught up on enough projects to tackle it!
I started by cutting just the background pieces. I labeled them very carefully and organized them in ziplock baggies. I am very glad I did this because it has made sitting down to “whip up” a block much faster since I don’t have to cut all these small pieces.
With the background pieces pre-cut I only have to cut the pieces for the specific mug that I wish to make at that sitting. That being said, seeing all those little pieces also got me very nervous about putting these blocks together. I had never pieced pieces this little before!
With these nerves settling in I decided two things. I wanted to get the most difficult block out of the way and done and I had better do a practice run first. I wanted a chance to make mistakes and learn tricks on scrap material before cracking into a most beautiful new layer cake! My practice block went smoothly (I think because I could relax and not worry about mistakes) and I was pleased with the outcome. It also gave me confidence that if I could make the hardest block on practice material, I should have no problem making it or any of the others with the pretty layer cake!
One thing that I can say is this pandemic has given me is the gift of time. Never before would I have felt that I had the time to sit and sew a quilt block in an evening after school! But without rehearsals I am finding myself using my gift of time to be creative in other ways in the evening. I may not be creating music, but instead I am creating at my sewing machine.
So far, I have completed four of the nine blocks. I will hopefully show you the finished top before too long. Cheers!
