Busy Sewing Day

The title of this post says it all.  That's about all I accomplished today - sewing, and it was fun! 

 

Over the weekend ME and I took a class on Karen Gibbs' pattern "Madison Star" (which we nicknamed  "MadStar"), and for reasons too trivial to go into, I had difficulty taking in the instruction for the first hour and a half.  So today I wanted to make sure I worked on our "homework".  If I had problems, I wanted to be able to e-mail Karen.  As it turned out, I had been able to catch up enough in understanding the process during the class to be able to sew some strip sets together today.  I finished the two largest sets which gave me quite a sense of accomplishment (we started the biggest in class, and I just decided today to continue working my way down from largest to smallest).   Throughout the week, I will continue to whittle my way down to strip set #1 so I will be all ready for the second class.

 

This pattern is a bargello star made with two and a half inch strips from jelly rolls (a handy name for 40 strips rolled up and tied with ribbon).  While I love star motifs, making this quilt is a personal challenge that I set myself.  I have a tremendous respect for Karen's ability as both the designer of the pattern and as the teacher so that's not part of the challenge, but my fabrics are. 

 

Challenge #1:  I chose to purchase jelly rolls featuring Kaafe Fassett's fabrics for this quilt.  Now while I like most of his designs, I don't like all of them.  That's one of the problems I have with jelly rolls.  You can't really see what you're going to get in the package when the strips are all rolled up!  Today I found I had to keep telling myself to look at colors and not to get hung up on designs I don't care for.  Since the strips will be cut into smaller pieces, the color is really all that matters. 

 

Challenge #2:  I don't do well with randomness as I'm sure I've said before.  I am a fan of controlled randomness when I am allowed to say, "I don't like this here; I'm going to chose another fabric instead."  Fortunately, it turns out that that is Karen's approach also.  However, my jelly rolls have a few different strips in different packages so I can't duplicate colors in each set as I feel should.  Karen says that doesn't matter, Noel, so trust her!

 

When I have this quilt finished I'll show you and tell you how I feel about the process and the end result.  One thing I can tell you is my quilt will be bright and cheerful!