Spinning plates

So if you may remember, my latest hand-piecing project had got thus far and you can read  the whys and wherefores here plus a hand-piecing post in general here.

I've added a couple more rounds to it and it now looks like this.

My aim was to make the centre honeycomb shapes darken out to the edges in a random, smudgy kind of way. I then added a Flying Geese border on.

I do like the points on my Flying Geese blocks to be as perfect as is possible. Leanne wrote a very informative and interesting post about the various ways of constructing and trimming them here. For trimming, I went with one of the options she mentioned: the Bloc-Loc.

As you can see, it only takes millimetres off but if left untrimmed, those millimetres have a pesky habit of multiplying into centimetres and so on which, on a long row of Flying Geese blocks is going to really be noticeable. For ease of cutting, I've been using a rotating cutting mat. I think without one, the task of trimming would be quite cumbersome.

If, like me, you're making up your medallion quilt as you go along, there are always ways to make your borders fit. My Flying Geese blocks had to be 2.5" x 5" finished because I'd bought the Bloc Loc and wanted to try it out. However, the maths wasn't working out for that sized block to fit along the edges.

I therefore decided to break the rows of Flying Geese blocks in the middle with a different piece of feature fabric in each row and added cornerstone squares in too, in another different piece of fabric.

To my eye it all works because the larger pieces of fabric have already appeared in the honeycomb centre and the Flying Geese blocks going different ways adds another element of interest.

So that's where I am so far.  I'm going to have a ponder and work out what the next row should be.

In the meantime, it swapped from being a hand-piecing project to a machine piecing one when I started to assemble the Flying Geese blocks. All it took was one restless evening of having nothing to do with my hands and I was back upstairs cutting my next hand-piecing project which involved these.

And this (the large size template)...

...which so far has become this.

I was going to crop my trainers out but I'm going to leave them there in all their triumphant matching glory because whenever I go out in them the children cry 'Oh no mum, not those trainers. They're just toooo bright.'

And finally, I felt my Accuquilt had been gathering dust for too long so I cranked out these...

...which are well on their way to becoming this.

I think I have enough plates spinning at the moment.