Working with Frog Legs

Tonight, I finally got to start sewing on the frogs. On the one hand, it is going pretty good.  I was working on my third frog when my bobbin thread ran out and I decided that I was going to stop for the night.  The third frog happened to be the fun little guy who is all stretched out in the photo.

For the most part, it is going fairly quickly.  However, frog legs pose certain problems.  Frog toes pose even more problems.  That is a lot of tight turns to make!

But, I'm happy with the way that it is working out.  The sewing does make a difference.

The picture to the right shows a frog before appliqueing it on. 

The last pictures shows the same frog after finishing the sewing.

Playing with the Layout

When I was sewing the strips together, I had an image in the back of my head about how the strips would fit together.  It was a nice idea. Unfortunately, when I laid the strips all out together, it wound up looking more sloppy than purposefully random.

The frogs, however, still looked good!

I have five frogs ready to be appliqued on (they are just placed on top of the fabric for these photos).  And, I have five more that I just need to finish cutting around.  I started cutting out the new frogs, but the layout of the strips was really bothering me.

So, I played with the strips.

Right now, they are fitting together like this.  I'm a lot happier with this layout.  Although, there are still a few darker areas.  I'm going to leave it like this, though, for a little while and finish cutting out the frogs and then see how it looks with the frogs on it.

Flexibility is the key to quilting with only a vague plan.  :-)

More Progress

Only one strip left to sew!  The strips have gone together a lot faster than I had initially thought.  It has also been kind of fun.

I've started preparing for the next step: appliqueing the frogs onto the quilt.  I have the first four ready to iron on and sew around.  I'm hoping for a minimum of twelve.

But, I still have to find the backing fabric...

And, I have another glitch.  I bought thread for the machine quilting part shortly after I bought the fabric.  But, I only bought one spool, and now the store that I bought it at has closed.  The question becomes:  buy more thread or hope for the best?

Whew. Just in Time!

For a variety of reasons, I had to take a break from the blog for a time.  And, my desire to sew left for a while.

Fortunately, the desire to sew and to create and to imagine and to dream have all returned.  And, not a moment too soon, as I still have a quilt to finish by July that I would like to finish by May 1.  No pressure there!

The good news is that I think I can finish it on time. Saturday, I completed all the blocks for it.  Sunday, I started sewing the blocks into strips, with the blocks separated by random sized blue and white plain blocks.  Tonight, I'm halfway done making the strips.

The next steps will be to start appliqueing the frogs on to the plain white blocks.  Not all of the plain white blocks, but a sufficient number of them.  Then, it will be time to sew the strips together and quilt it.

Okay, when I type it, it sounds easy enough.  But, I'm sure that it will be tougher than I realize.  At least I have figured out the frogs that I will be appliqueing on the white squares. 

The toughest part may actually be finding a suitable backing fabric.  I guess that means a trip to the fabric store is in my future!