Paper Piecing Woes!

Good morning everyone,

It is 22* and snowing. I had no idea we had snow coming in. I was piddling around on the computer trying to avoid all the boring stuff going on right now on the tv. I got up, looked out the window and was rather surprised to see the ground white. I will leave the tv on till after Mr. Obama takes the oathe of office, then off it goes, and on my country music comes. LOL I am just not going to waste my day watching all the wastefulness that is going on in Washington D.C. today.

I have decided that I really do not like paper piecing. It was not fun for me at all. So I doubt that I will have alot of that in my future. (Unless I get much, much better at it. sigh) The base for the rooster quilt went together very quickly, but it was just piecing and strip piecing, so no problem.

Then I got to the paper pieced sun. Oh my, your first paper pieced project should not be tiny little points like the rays on this sun. I had to rip out each of the first 8 pieces that I sewed at least once and some twice. (frown here) I was just about ready to scrap this portion of it. After all, does the rooster really need a sun? Then I decided to cut my red and yellow pieces bigger. That worked much better. My frugal self didn't want to waste any fabric, but I found that wasting fabric was better than losing my sanity. LOL So I got the sun paper pieced. Then promptly tore the paper off the back, which was not easy by any means. (sigh again) Did all this only to read that I was not supposed to tear the paper backing off yet. This thing is just not cooperating with me. So here is where I am at the moment on the rooster project. I am supposed to applique the center of the sun on the inside of the sun points and the background piece on the outside of the points. I hope to get that done in a bit. Then I need to decide how I want to do the rooster. I can fuse him on and use a hand blanket stitch around him. I can fuse him on and use a machine stitch around the pieces. Or I can needle turn all the pieces. Decisions, decisions. LOL Anyway, I will keep you up to date with what I decide to do. Here is a little table topper that I made out of charm pack of southwestern fabrics. Sorry I can't remember what the charm pack was called. Anyway, I think it turned out kind of cute and I'm frugal, don't you know. (I'm sure my kids call that cheap.LOL) Anyway, you see all of those half square triangles? Well, I saved all of the other halves. I sewed corner to catty corner on them, then marked a half inch over and made another seam. Then I cut between these 2 seams. So now I have some more HST to use, only these are smaller. I have some ideas for them, but haven't done it yet. I will in good time. I have had the quilting done on this for about a week, but just couldn't find the right binding. I interviewed lots of different fabrics, then I tried the black. Oh yeah, that was the one. I made a comment to my dh something like, 'I love it when a plan comes together'. Then I had to giggle. How many out there remember the show called 'The A Team'? That is the comment that Hannibal (I think that was his name. Can't remember his real name either, but remember he had very blond or white hair.) always said at the end of the show. (giggle) Ok, showing my age here. That show was probably in the 80's. It also had Mr.T in it. Anyway, sorry to drift there. The black was the perfect binding. My backing is pretty busy, but I also had trouble picking it for this project too. I'll show you anyway, but I don't think you can even see the quilting stitches. See, I told you you wouldn't be able to see the stitches. Oh well, my daughter helped me pick out the backing.

I thought I would share with you one of my favorite tools. It is the Fons and Porter binding tool. I just love this thing. It helps me to make the ends of the binding so smooth and looks so sharp. I bought it at JoAnn's with a coupon and it was worth every cent I paid. LOL I use it with every binding I put on.

I will be starting my sweet potatoes soon. I try to grow our own plants. Still doing it the way my grandparents did. LOL I will show pictures as they hopefully grow. Of course, I had to buy these sweet potatoes at the store, so I am sure hoping they will sprout and grow. It will be a bummer if they don't. I like to save my own sweet potatoes from the previous year to grow my plants, but didn't get any last year. In fact, our garden last year was a bust. I am sure counting on a good one this year. I will be sending my order to Jungs this Friday.

I am back. I paused to watch Mr. Obama take the oath of office. He was not my choice for president , but I will continue to pray for him to make wise decisions. I don't envy the job ahead of him. Our country is in a mess. Anyway, he is now our president and will have my prayers and support. I do not like politics, so this is about as much as you will hear from me.

I am now off to listen to some good music and work on my rooster. Everyone have a good day. I'll talk to you all tomorrow.