A Glimpse of Stars

1.  

Laid out the pieces I've been working on just to see how they will look once they're sewn together. Too bad I don't have a design wall to pin them up on--I think this is going to look really good when it's done!

Here are four of the Bag #2 pieces set together to test the shading on the stars.

Because I used fabrics from Deep Stash I didn't have a lot of choices. Well, not as many as if I'd been at the store with a full array of shades in front of me!

Still, there were a lot of good orangey-yellowy-brownish colors, and quite a lot of that reddish brown. So all the "dark" on one of the sections is that color.


This is what the sections looked like when they were done. On the left are the trimmed pieces, and on the right is a messier, untrimmed one.

Ninety-six of these guys.

If you look at the picture at the top of this column, you can see that they will be sewn to the stars I made last week. The dark spikes fill out the background of the stars, and then the yellow/orange pieces will create new stars where the corners meet.

 More process photos.

Testing out color combinations. Because of the aforementioned situation with a limited choice of fabrics, you can see that these two wouldn't give much of a definition to a star. Too close in value.

Guess there will be some laying out once the blocks are sewn together.

Started on the next bag's worth of piecing. There are 32 of these pieces, all in the dark blue/light blue fabrics.

 Fold. Trim. Sew. Press.

Repeat.

I've acquired a new assistant along the way. Shyla is renouncing her Closet Cat ways, big time. She likes to see what I'm doing and "help" me do it.

 Of course, my former assistant is not about to give up his status as Chief Cat.

You may have noticed that she perches daintily on the pressing part of the mat, staying well away from the action going on with the rotary cutter.

He feels as if he can just flop right on top of what I'm trying to do.  Even if I don't especially want his "help."

 When he's not sitting on the work, he's blocking the light. I have 3 Ott lights set around the machine and the cutting/pressing table, one of which is quite elderly and flops closed at the slightest provocation.

A certain boy cat is always ready to provoke it. He's also prone to causing avalanches of various sorts.

This sewing room was going to be organized for optimal efficiency, and that may very well happen. In the meantime, if I want to sew, I need to make a little space and try to locate my tools so they're accessible and not too precariously balanced.

Admire the lovely boycat draped across my cutting table. No, go ahead.I can't do anything else anyway.

Thisr-- is the face of a great little Mother's Helper. Not.

As I type this, he's sitting at the right of the computer, eyeing my plate of buttered raisin toast  over on the left. I'm not sharing. If I was a "good" cat mother--and I am definitely NOT his mother!--you just know I'd let him lick all the butter off and nibble on the toast before I finished off whatever he didn't want. You'd think after being my cat all these years he'd have learned that I'm selfish that way.

Hope springs eternal, and all that good stuff.

Back to the sewing and cutting and pressing and trimming and and and. I'm getting anxious to see how this is all going to look when it's done!