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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

I took the Orca Bay plunge!

I kept telling myself "no, no, no, not til you finish some other stuff!" BUT after seeing all the blocks everybody else is doing on Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay mystery I just had to jump in!  Bonnie is posting the clues on Fridays, then on Mondays you can show your progress using her linky.

When I went to pull strips, I only had a few 1-1/2" neutrals
I'll have to cut some from yardage stash, yaaaay!

I had no blacks at all, so all those will be cut from stash; here are a few fabrics I'll use...


See that very colorful piece with the cave men?  Some of the strips were okay, but others were a bit iffy...

I thought I'd better be safe than sorry, so those will get tossed into my parts department bin to use later.


I took this picture of my progress last night...


Then this morning I woke sorta early and decided to really get into em...

10 sets done!  See the caveman peeking out?  Because there's a good bit of the black background around him, I figure he can come too.  Anybody have any thoughts??

That's my progress so far and I feel encouraged!  Someone gave a tip on making the blocks lie flat by unsewing a thread at the center junction.  Then I pressed the seams in a counter-clockwise direction and they lie flat as a pancake... I forgot who it was, but she has a linky on Bonnie's blog - thanks, my quilty friend!

Update: I discovered who to give credit for the great tip - it's Cissa, visit her blog here

Sew forth and sew on

9 comments:

  1. Hi Linda, I plunged also! I'm in Alexandria. Happy sewing.
    Carolyn

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  2. oh they look great!! Bonnie said to get out the UGLIES too, I mean it's a 2" squares when done, so it doesn't mattethr. I had some WEIRD blocks too, some that had light on the corner like yours too and it's fine ( I used dark blue instead of black- don't have much black but tons of blues and especially scraps ) it made a nice dent so far... If you really HATE that block they put it aside and cut out another one later, I had some miscuts too and one I counted as blue but it had a whiteish background, once I sewed it together, it looked like it should be in the white pile, also when I sewed together, some pieces were not cut all the way, so when I was done I had to recut 20 or so more blues..... have a look at mine btw:-)

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  3. A friend of mine used to tell me that if you don't like a fabric, you haven't cut it small enough...LOL!

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  4. I'm looking at some of the links posted on Bonnie's page and it's fun to see what others are doing and how they are progressing. You've done a great job so far. About the blacks being black enough ... I like the tip someone gave on QuiltvilleChat about taking her glasses off/squinting at the block to see what colour it reads predominantly. I think you can get away with your caveman face - it will be such fun to 'find' in the finished quilt :)

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  5. They're gorgeous and so scrappy, I love it.

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  6. I think your blocks look fantastic so far! I took the plunge too and just hope that I will be able to keep up!

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  7. that cave man peaking out of the last one is just way too cute. I want a caveman in my quilt!!

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  8. I love the caveman, don't change it, it is good fun to have a face like that in the quilt.

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  9. I think you chose such fun fabrics. I think that as long as enough of the background fabric shows then it is fair game - at least that is what I went with.

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