Saturday, October 30, 2010

A reversal of fortunes

Have you ever.... carefully listed all the size pieces you need for a set of blocks, figured out which pieces need to be light, which dark, how many you need of each, got them all cut and then....

Realized you reversed the values and cut lights where you needed darks and darks where you needed lights?

Yep, did it. After finishing one set of star in star blocks (the light star on dark background) for Shakespeare in the Park, I figured out what I needed for the last set of blocks, the dark star on light background. I got everything cut for the inner star, then the outer star, then realized.... I had reversed the values for the outer star.

The worrisome thing is that I'm running low on the cream I'm using for the background, but the good thing is that the 40 cream squares I cut at 4 3/8 inches can be cut down to 3.5 inches, so I should be okay.

While I was cutting I noticed my rotary cutter was dragging a little. I replaced the blade and what a difference. I have to remember to replace/sharpen the blades more often.

At least it will be easier to recut the rest of the pieces today.

A couple of nights ago I got back to the thread work on the sample piece and added another couple of colors. I used some polyester machine embroidery thread with a nice sheen and it's really added to the depth of the piece. Instead of filling the open space with a tight filler, like I did on the first sample, I just added some small spirals and that fills it pretty nicely.