Ringo Lake and En Provence Update: A Leader/Ender Spree

Up First: Ringo Lake

It's been a real challenge to try to keep up the steady work to get the "Ringo Lake"  parts finished.  I failed over the weekend --- didn't sew a thing!  I went to a guild meeting on Saturday and picked up waayy too much eye candy in the form of old magazines so spent most of the weekend oohing and ahhing and placing bookmarks. 

So I made up for that on the holiday Monday, making up more Part 4/6 combo units, the pieced triangles needed for the setting triangles in Part 9 and more Flying Geese for Part 5. 

About those combo units:  I've been piecing mine using the shortcut from Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Shaded Four Patch Technique Sheet which I talked about in my last post.  Even though I had written notes on both Bonnie's instructions and the Technique Sheet telling me exactly what size strips to cut out of which fabric to make the blocks in the format needed, what did I do?  When I started this round of piecing, I thought I knew exactly what to cut and sew.  Yeah, about that....

Needless to say these are wrong....

Really wrong.....

Oh so much wrong!   Note to self:  If you are using a shortcut but haven't sewn with it in a few days, it's a good idea to review your notes before starting!

Fortunately, these were cut from only one strip of each fabric and I had more than enough of the turquoise and brown fabrics left to cut more to make the corrected set.  However, I had to remove and salvage the coral triangles from the blocks I had completed (the ones in the upper right in the picture) because I only have some yardage left of one of the coral fabrics --- I've used up everything else to cut what was needed for all the other parts of the mystery. 

When I had cut the turquoise strips for that first errant set, I also cut all the triangles and squares needed for the setting triangles in Part 9.

I did some more stitching Tuesday and finished up all of the rest of the Part 4/6 combo units.  I also got some more Part 5 Flying Geese and Part 3 units done but there's still a lot more of those to make. 

I want to start on my 2018 goal projects but want to get these parts finished first.  Once I'm able to move "Ringo" onto the block piecing stage, then I'll be in a good position  to break off to work on something non-mystery related.

On to En Provence

This time last year I was getting a late start on piecing the parts for the "En Provence" mystery.  This year, while working on the parts for "Ringo Lake", I was also able to finally start putting together the blocks for that quilt.  This was where I was at the beginning of last week:

The first competed block is on the upper left of the design wall and the second one was down on the table queued up for sewing together.  This is where I am with it now:

 

 

With nine blocks pieced, now I'm going to start piecing the sashing units that surround the finished blocks so I can move everything tighter together to be able to add the rest of the un-pieced block parts onto the wall.  During all this leader/ender-ing (I know, not a word), I also finally finished piecing all the sashing Tri-Recs units too.

One of my goals for this year is to get both mysteries at least to tops.  Of course, it would be even more fabulous to finish both quilts completely but baby steps, Padewan, baby steps!  Many people have already finished their tops and a few have even already quilted theirs. Check out the last link-up if you want to see those beauties!

More good news: the first part of my Zazzle order came in on Friday.

Woo hoo!  Is this an incentive to try to make another of the Quiltville mysteries?  Well, to that end I realize I have a lot of the brown fabrics left over so I am thinking about that too..... 

 So many quilts, so little time!  Happy Quilting!