A Star is Born

Up at 6, drive for 5.5 hours. Work 8.5 hours (really only about five of those :p), errands to run, people to talk to...and finally after all that I get to take some time to put together the first block of my mother's quilt.

This is my first realization that I need to put a little more planning into the scale of the patterns I choose. Looking at this block and knowing it's going to be along side 31 of it's identical fellows and several irish chains I can see that there is going to be a serious problem. It is going to look far too busy! you can barely make out any definition in the white bits of the outer and inner stars. The backgrounds for the Irish Chains is a little more plain but it does have red pattern on it. I'm hoping because it's a smaller scale pattern that it will help to balance all this out but I'm starting to worry that it will be insignificant to the issue.

New thing learned with this block: Flying Geese
The triangles are part of a Colonial traditional pattern that when arranged appropriately they resemble geese flying in formation. Doing geese on this block involves drawing lines on the wrong side of the fabric in pencil or chalk over the diagonal and using that line as a guide. Drawing that line adds time to the whole process but it's worth it to maintain accuracy.

Here's hoping this quilt doesn't turn out to be pattern vomit!

Weekend in Jersey was nice. Went to go see Red...which is a DC comic flick about retired CIA black opps. It's not bad - certainly entertaining, but it's not a thinking movie. More of a "all my favorite actors are in this movie save Samuel L Jackson so what can go wrong" kinda movie. John Malkovich was fantastic! We also had a bonfire on Sunday and I got sunburned. Toasted! In October!