Lizzie’s Snowball

or maybe Snowballs for Lizzie.  The final name hasn’t been decided upon yet.  Why Lizzie?  That was the name of the fabric line.  I found it on the selvedge and  made the decision to use it.

I spent one day cutting the fabrics.  I needed 25......6 1/2” blocks from the focal fabric, half square triangles from a rose/pink and I scrapped that out of what I had

(this is all that was left), all the 2 1/2” squares to make the nine patch.
I thought when I started I would sew one row per day……………7 days work.  What was I thinking?  I don’t know.  After one day of that nonsense, I sat at the machine and did all the nine patches.

After spending nearly a day doing that I sat over the next two evenings and drew up the paper piecing patterns for the snowballs.  I started by doing one at a time (remember 25 here) and then I thought of carbon paper!!!!  Remember that stuff?  I had a brand new package and made up two at a time instead.  It did go a little faster.
The person who drew these ones didn’t know the difference between 6 1/2”  and 7 1/2” on the ruler!

The next day I put the paper on the light table and set to work putting all the fabrics in place and pinning.

I did 7 at a time……………..2 rows.

I thought I would try something different this time.  I started in one corner and then just continually sewed all the way around without stopping.



When I was finished all I had to do was clip the stitch in the middle and then take back to the half square triangle.  Press and I was done.
Sewing the rows together went pretty smoothly.  I did have problems with one block but a bit of reverse work and it was all done.
  This was the reason I opted to paper piece the blocks.  All these corners have to match and I knew if I didn’t do it the paper piecing method mine definitely wouldn’t.
The top is done.

I plan on picking up the backing down in Prince Edward Island in July, so for now, this one is going to be rolled and put away. 

And then as they say the light bulb came on and I did something I thought was pretty darn clever........................of course, that's for tomorrow.

Footnote

I was over reading Patti's blog yesterday and she had a very interesting article.  All about thread.  Its from an email she gets from http://www.about.com

Here is the link for you to read the article.  You will be amazed by what it says.

http://sewing.about.com/library/weekly/aa102100a.htm
And hallelujah, my thread isn't listed.