WIP Wednesday

So the excitement of the mystery quilt wore off almost as soon as I opened the instructions to step two.  I called my mom when I had finished up step one because she had finished step one earlier in the day.  As soon as we opened the envelopes for step two I was kicking myself for this stupid idea.  Step two requires us to make at minimum 96 half square triangles (HST).

Then there is this weird stitch and flip block that looks like 2 HST units sewn together.  I think we have covered many times how much I hate snow ball blocks and these are really elongated snowballs.  So I know I would be much more accurate if I sewed HST blocks but then that would mean making an extra  192 HST.

So how do you make your HST blocks?  I'd love to hear if anyone has some great suggestions for easy ways to make HST's.  Typically I make mine by marking the blocks and sewing on two lines and then trimming them up.  But this is a lot of HST's!

I'm also second guessing the choice to use two fabrics instead of one for the background because the next step ultimately looks like we are making star blocks and so it is going to take a lot of brain power to make it work.  I'm just hoping in the end I end up with something that looks good and has enough contrast because looking at them now I'm not sure that I do.

In other news have you heard about the contest that Threadbias is having in connection with the release of Wallflowers?  I decided to try my hand at designing a quilt and figured I'd give it a go an enter the contest.  I designed this one for my mama and named it Mama's Wagon Wheel.  My mama is a huge part of my life and I don't know what I would do without her.  I didn't always understand or respect that so now that I am grown up and know just how lucky I am I'm trying to make up for all the time I wasted being a bratty teenager who thought I didn't like her.  I think the wheel is a pretty good symbol of that.  She's the important part like the axle and I'm a spoke.

It's a little hard to see all the detail in this little picture.
Head over to Threadbias to see it up close.

My mama is a big fan of gray and yellow so I started with those colors.  Then I added in some aqua for me because after all if I were on some off chance to win the contest I would be actually making this quilt with my winnings so I wanted it to be something I would enjoy sewing and something should would enjoy using.  What do you think?  Would you vote for Mama's Wagon Wheel when the contest opens?  Be sure to check it out up close here.  It's easy to miss a lot of the detail in this little thumbnail picture.

That's it for me this week.  Head on over to Lee's and see what everyone else is up to.