My First Friday Night Sew In

Last night I participated in my first Friday Night Sew In (hosted by Heidi) and instead of working on projects that are already in progress, I decided to begin something new :)

I find that I am almost too adventurous sometimes in the land of sewing and this time to prove myself right I decided to join the New York Beauty Block QAL that Sew Sweetness is hosting.  I have never paper pieced before (obviously, since I just started quilting) but I decided that I needed to make these blocks and I just shouldn't put it off.  So I started last night!  I am not organized and this is what it is like to sew with me in my sewing area:

I don't have any large fancy table so I usually use our coffee table in the living room to cut on but I just was too lazy to walk back an fourth so I do it on the floor sometimes...  This area got worse as the block progressed.

Look What I Can Do!

It really only took me about 15 minutes to understand what I was suppose to be doing, but I spent over 2 hours on this block.  When I got comfortable I got lazy and sewed on the wrong size.  Do you know how difficult it is to pick out 1.4 thread length from a paper pieced project with thread that blends so well with your fabric that you don't even see it?  Yea, I do.  And it's bad.  I was lucky I could still use the paper to re-stitch.  I was a lot more cautious after that.  The curves on this block were also terrifying and I had to seam-rip and redo the first one but I'm pretty happy with it now.  YouTube helped me out there.

 
Afterwards I decided to not start the second block just yet and clean up a little bit.  OK, a lot-a-bit.  That took a good portion of my evening before I moved onto the last part of the border of my tree quilt.  Mama Spark and I decided on how to cut the lengths for them, so I cut it to 82.5", found the middles, went to pin them together, and quit.  That quilt is just horrid.  The thing is not square so putting on the border and forcing the top to match the border size is not going well for me.  It has been abandoned in the middle of the room until the next time I have energy to be brave!