Another quilting getaway happened this past weekend!  I LOVE them!  I can really focus on sewing…no meals to cook or house distractions.  The only negative… I was gone over Valentine’s Day.  I gave my honey chocolates and a card before I left (I got one from him too!) and took chocolates for my quilting buddies.  All is good!

Now for the fun…it was -11 or -14 or something “wicked” cold with a negative wind chill.  So what do I do?  Go out in the cold and make clouds!  I had watched a video a couple years ago and always wanted to try it.  Yes, yours truly did it.  Boiled water thrown into the air and boom, CLOUDS!  We had a number of ipad and cell phone cameras rolling so we captured the whole thing.  Not only did I do it once, but three times!  I’ll put the video on the Wendt Quilting Facebook page!

I’m back to working the Lone Star.  The photo below is all the sections done and ready to sew together.

The arrow points are paper pieced.  Those LARGE corner pieces were drafted onto 1″ graph paper.

#1 – 1″ graph paper is great for drafting large blocks!

I needed to trim the seams to add the next pieces.  I usually use a piece of card stock to fold the paper back over to trim (or business card as I showed on my mini house quilt).  The sections on this were so long I needed a longer piece of paper.  So, I used this menu!  Funny, this menu just happened to be in my project suitcase.  Hiding there from Fall Market and Festival.

(The menu is from a wonderful pizza place in Houston.  They let me have it!  YES, I said please and thank you.)

In sewing the paper pieced sections between the star points, I left the paper in for matching the pointy bits. 

The paper did not “give”  to ease in the fullness.  What to do?  I tore the paper to the seam line and it helped tremendously.  The photo below shows the tear.

#2 – Make a tear along the seam allowance edge down to the seam line to add give when sewing paper pieced seams.

Laughs at a getaway are MANY!  Also lots of bits of well intended advice…. and the discussion went something like this…

Quilter 1: “Fabric is stored EVERYWHERE in my house.  And I hate it when I go to get a bin from under the bed and there is all that dust on it.”

Quilter 2: “I know, it can be enough to make batting!!”

in quilting,

Debbie