I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. I think all that turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie gave me a case of Blogger's Block. I also have a case of Designer's Block. Well not exactly, but I ran into a problem I haven't solved yet. I played around with a spiral design by skewing it in Illustrator. Is that fun, or what? I came up with the following plan for a 48 x 48 inch quilt with lots of room for magnificent FMQ. Not so bad. Then I started breaking it up into the pattern pieces that will be needed to make the quilt.
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| Roman Candle |
See the part that runs from the center ending in a paddle with red and blue? It is made up of two long, skinny triangles, mirror images of each other. Well, I isolated that triangle in Illustrator and it is about 24 inches long! Oooops! Design flaw. How on earth am I going to print a paper piecing pattern on 8.5 x 11 inch paper?
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| Recalcitrant fan or paddle piece. |
*Can I glue pieces of paper together with washable glue? I don't have any Paper Solvy on hand to try it.
*Can I tape two pieces together? I am reluctant to to do that because of increased bulk and sticky on the needle.
*How about tracing it onto freezer paper? I worry that some of the points are too narrow to do it that way.
*The best idea I have come up with is to trace it by hand on Golden Threads tissue, which comes in a roll. I haven't used it for paper piecing and I am afraid it is too thin to put through my printer (worth a try though). Maybe tracing paper?
*Of course, I can always redesign that portion of the pattern. Last resort!
Now is the time to incubate the problem and let the ideas percolate as I walk the dog, practice the piano, cook dinner, sleep at night, work on the current UFO. Finally, I will sample some of the possible solutions. I also welcome any ideas from you, my readers.
