Plodding Along

I sewed another dress!

The Dungaree Dress pattern by Marilla Walker is a relatively easy pinafore style dress, with shoulder straps, pockets and a button tab on the side.  I bought some printed drill from Spotlight (black with cool white arrows) and it is the perfect weight - not too heavy, but not too light either.  It was a nice stable weight to sew with, which I also appreciated.

I really like how it turned out.

There were some parts of the instructions which I'm not really sure whether I did the right thing or not.  For example the pattern piece for the shoulder strap said to cut two in interfacing... but then there was no mention of applying the interfacing in the pattern... so since I didn't actually remember about it until well after the shoulder straps were made, didn't worry about it.  I made some minor adjustments - I sewed the straps into the bodice at the front and back.  There should have been snaps on the front, but as I didn't have any, and didn't really want to do buttons, figured just sewing it into the lining would be better.  It does mean that I need to take it off over the head, as opposed to stepping out of it, but it still works.  I also used some bias binding to finish off the inside of the bodice lining.

After writing a new list of monthly tasks, I settled in and finally BASTED the RSC quilt from last year.  This had been set to permanent procrastination...

It was so good to just get it done.

Then I needed to decide how it was going to be quilted!  Sometimes thinking about the quilting puts me off actually doing the basting, and this is a BAD habit.  This orange peel/melon shape/postage stamp design had always been in the back of my mind, and even though I looked through all my books, and thought about some alternatives - I returned to the orange peel in the end.  I thought it would suit the different sized blocks well, and as the quilt was already gridded... seemed like a match made in heaven.

These little 1" squares were pretty tricky.

As the black thread doesn't really show up in the black squares, it really does make the pattern look like interlocking circles... which I think is really appropriate on a quilt made up of squares!

These 5" squares were looking a bit empty so I added an additional feature to the centre of them.

I'm thinking about stippling in the melon shape also (on these larger blocks), but decided to get the rest of the quilt finished and make a decision about that later.

Now that my first quilt top has been finished for my "Year of the Sampler Quilt" - I thought you just needed to see some of these feature stitcheries in closer detail.

And I picked up a terrific wide backing from The Country Yard so I am all ready to jump in and get this one quilted too (or added to the pile with the several other sampler quilts also needing quilting).

In other news, I have been plodding along getting another Cross Tiles block done...

I finished up a second block using the Moda Cupcake Mix recipe cards... 6" block using 1.5" triangles... using charm squares of Sweetwater's Sunday Supper range.

Block One:

Block Two

I started cutting my green scraps to make another Double Nine Patch block...

And here is all my random projects together on the design wall!

They look kinda cute together.