Sewing and Sleeping

My internship is winding down but the last few weeks have been particularly intense.  Plus, the snow has arrived and the shifts in the weather have done a number on my noggin. ( I LOVE snow; I hate low barometric pressure and dramatic temperature swings.  :-)  I fell asleep so early on Friday night that it was still Friday.  Normally, I don't retire until the wee hours of morning.  Night was still well in control of the clock when I lost consciousness.   Then I had a terror-inducing nightmare involving a dragon-zombie apocalypse.  If you wanted to know what any of that meant, (and trust me, you don't) I could describe it in a staggering amount of detail.  Apparently, my dreamscape is the latest of things available in HD.  Once I got over the disturbing bits, I was strangely fascinated by it.  Always, the bright side.

Before I crashed early once again on Saturday, I managed to get some sewing done (two weekends in a row - what the heck???).  Family - if you are reading, I once again ask that you stop here.  In fact, let's just declare the blog off-limits until Dec 25th.  Please and thank you.

So far, I have sewn twelve of the squares inside of squares ( of 24) and 24 of the square in the corner blocks.  These are destined to become a lap quilt for Father.  

I started with a sketch.  I'd bought fabric a month or so ago and just couldn't pick a block style.  I wanted something masculine but everything I saw was just too fussy...  I came up with the design above, calculated how many of each piece I'd have to cut from how many strips and when rotary-cutter crazy.  Then I realized that *I* was crazy.  My piecing has been dodgy.  I have not been able to sew a scant 1/4" since, well.... ever.  And here I have several pieces that would end up with a 1/2" width.  Yeah, this ought to go well.

Then I thought, "Hmmm, based on my success with the Winter Woolies a couple of weeks ago, maybe I should paper-piece it..."  So I made a template and that's what I did.  Because I'd already cut the fabric, I am finding that it takes a bit of pinning to make sure that it ends up in the right place when you sew it.  I can't chain-piece and it is taking me a lot longer to sew but the results are so precise, it's entirely worth the extra effort.  Plus, this block combo is very forgiving when it comes to finished size.  If I find I'm running shy of 9.5", these can trim to 9.25" without ruining them.  Yay!

This photo turned out super-saturated for some reason.  Bad lighting + tomato red =  vintage 70s look?

Total finished this weekend:

-12 fiddly paper-pieced squares ( plus 24 easy blocks from last weekend)

-two quilt backs (one for the lap quilt, one for a top finished last weekend)

-couple of metres of double-fold bias binding in a particular shade of purple to match the fabrics I chose from Seester's gifts

Migraines: 

-1

Long-suffering, patient, neglected friends seen:
-none, but in my defence, I once again fell asleep at the dinner table on Friday.  Driving is never a wise decision when you've come ever-so-close to mashed potatoes up the nose.

Percentage of body and spirit restored:
-nearly 100%, ready for another week!