Progress is Being Made!

In November of 2013 I posted about my current leader/ender project, Bow-dacious, which is found in Bonnie Hunter’s book, Adventures with Leaders & Enders.  My update report:  Progress is being made!

I have finally turned all my prep work of paired up colors into 8 colors of scrappy bow ties and on January 17^th I finally sewed the last set of 4 bow ties into a block. 56 blocks later I am ready to choose a color for the sashing that connects the blocks.

Finished blocks!

I will back up here for a minute and tell you about the sashing that connects four bow ties.  I looked at the picture in the book to see what color she sashed her bow tie blocks with.  Bonnie used a wonderful white and pink small check which reads pink to me and I dug through my shirts to find a pink one to use because I liked the look with the pink. (Tammy, stop laughing!) I used every bit of one men’s shirt to get all the pieces I needed. I had to piece 30 sashing strips and kept every bit of scrap I had left after cutting to make sure I did not come up one short.

 

All that is left from shirt!

One of Bonnie’s delights is to use things up.  She incorporates a lot of old 100% cotton men’s shirts in her works.  I have some in a tub or two which patiently wait for me to become as prolific as Bonnie and I even stopped taking the buttons off of them as I realize they will probably better serve mankind as shirts and I will give them back to Goodwill one day. Laura made a plethora of greeting cards with the buttons I did manage to take off shirts.

Sampling of Laura's blank cards

Back to my progress report; the blocks are amazing.  I had no trouble getting the variety of scrap 1 ½’ strips to do the job with.  I outlined this part of the block building in my earlier post, Weekend Warrior of Sewing.

Current leader/ender project in a box

This has been my only leader/ender project for this entire 14 months.  I am always prepared with a leader/ender project to sew off with and have already started using my next project which is pairing up 2 ½” squares with off-white muslin, the first step in making 9 patch units for a future quilt.

The Bow-dacious project is being done in tandem with my friend, Pattie.  She has gone off on her own tangent of recreating, redesigning and rethinking her color palette and is a little behind. I’m not sure what size her quilt will be, and it may even be two quilts.

Dark brown sashing choice

I have found a brown that is suitable for the final sashing and before the day is done I will cut the pieces so I can begin the last step in construction.  Now I just have to wait for Laura go get home from her overnight with her little school chum so she can crawl around on the floor and lay out the blocks for me.