my work project- 4th of July excitement

This is my work in progress. I have the best morning job ever. I play the piano for ballet classes. However, there can be a lot of down time between pieces that I play. The teacher sometimes spends quite a bit of time making corrections to the dancers or explaining what they would like them to do. So, in Jan this year I started researching hand sewing projects. I can't do anything like crochet or knitting at work because I have to drop my work at a seconds notice to start playing the piece and cross stitch was also out because of the time it takes me to count the stitches and try to recall where I was each time I pick up my work. I got a quilting DVD in the mail as a promo and it had a section on English Paper Piecing. It could not have been more perfect. Something small, that I could pick up and throw away in a small second and still get something done. I cut out the paper pieces on my Cricut machine and got started. I am in love with 4th of July or patriotic fabric and have been looking for a quilt pattern for a few years that I really liked. I liked the tumbling blocks. I meant for the bottoms to all be dark blue and for the red on the top of each block to be bright and pop, but like how it turned out. I like that I can have lots of busy patterns and it looks ok. I am going to finish the top with a 2 inch blue border around this section and a 4 inch bright red border on the very outside. I mostly make small quilts like this that are easy to display on the quilt ladder in my family room and on the wall. My mother suggested that I add some dark blue button on random places on the quilt. I am still debating that. I do really like the idea, but I don't want it to be too busy.

For those that don't know..each fabric was basted to a piece of paper. I then made each of the three part blocks. After the blocks were finished I sewed them all together. Yes it is a lot of hand work, but like I said, I had a lot of down time at work this spring. I started this segment in March and finished this much before school let out 3rd week in April (I did spend an 8 hour drive working on it third week in April, but really most of the work happened before that.)

The tool that I learned I cannot live without on this project is: THREAD WAX!! Oh my goodness. Why did I never learn about this before!!! The thread no longer gets in knots or gets all jumbled up. It is a serious necessity for working with a thread and needle. I bought some at JoAnn's for like $2.50. They sell beeswax. I also finally finally finally learned how to make a knot on the end of my thread very quickly. I would watch my mom do that when I was younger and could never get it. The wax on the thread made it easier for the thread to roll off the tip of my finger and therefore, I was able to finally knot thread with one hand. Ah.....sigh. It was really a great learning project.

Stay tuned. Russ is fixing the broken shelf in madalynn's room and then I am posting the final finished pictures of her room. It only took a year to finish the last couple things, but I am so excited every time that I walk into her room and see the area that I decorated. It makes me soooooo happy.