Loving my Citrus Sweet Love

There has been happy dancing in the Shush household. My Citrus Sweet Love BOM by Cabbage Quilts and Treehouse Textiles arrived yesterday (early too).

Well I am definitely in the honeymoon phase. Here's my package. Look at those sweet fabrics.

Yay - mail

I divided them in to four little piles for the block I had to make. 

Panic stations - it's cutting time.  I've never been so anxious ...

Here's my first quarter.  Oh wait, because I got all distracted sewing I didn't take any photos. So here is the whole block all done. All those little strips are 1" finished, so it will be a 12" finished block. 

Not so pretty on the white wall.

For me, this was an exercise in accuracy. I have never taken the time to figure out the right measurement for a scant 1/4" seam on my machine, but I did this time. After ummming and aahhing for a while, I figured the blocks were best made with seams pressed to one side, not open. Now I'm usually a seam open kind of girl - I love how flat and crisp the blocks look that way, but there are a lot of curved pieces in the quilt, so pressed to one side seems the best option. 

Then I discovered that if I move my needle setting one click to the right on Bernie, I have a PERFECT 1/4" seam. Yay for me - you'd think the sewing machine makers thought of it. It wouldn't work if I pressed my seams open - it would make the blocks too big, but it's perfect for this.  So all my little seams fitted together perfectly, and for the first time EVER my blocks ended up exactly the right size when done. What an epiphany!  What a pain in the bum all the faffing around was!  I can't see me spending this much time on blocks in the future, but for this quilt, perfection is at least the goal.  You'll see one seam in the bottom left quarter doesn't quite match, but other than that, we're all good.  I am definitely glad we started with the easiest block for a bit of a practice run. 

Then I went on and made my first ever pinwheel. There are 10 to do for the quilt, but I just wanted to give it go. And guess what? Great seams again.  *smug*

That's right - a perfect pinwheel

This is what it supposed to look like finished - in a long, long time.  These photos have been nicked from Cabbage Quilts because, ummmm, I haven't done my quilt yet. Silly. 

Beautiful

See the little pinwheels down the side?

And more beautiful.

So I'm a happy girl.  The BOM package isn't perfect - the instructions certainly assume you know how to quilt, and I would really like an overview of what we're getting each month, but I like the quilt so much, all is forgiven. I'm pretty excited about all the new techniques to learn. 

I can only imagine you're all ridiculously jealous you're not doing it with me. 

Linking up to WIP Wednesday and everywhere else cool on my party page. Howdy visitors!