What have I been doing this week?

 I decided to finish my UFO "Hawaii Sunset".  Having decided not too many shortcut would do, I started to tackle the side half blocks.  I cut up and sewed the pinks and greens

 Adding the bright blue strips first

 then the dark blue strips

Finally, I got the 4 corner pieces done. These strips, squares and triangles are not the same size as those above, but they look like they are.

I had thought it would take me a day.....wrong!  Once cut, it took me about an hour to make them all,

Time to start the assembly, starting with the corners and working towards the centre.  This is where I came unstuck!

 These blocks are wrong.  The Flying Geese are flying in all sorts of directions

These FG are correct.  They start at the bottom, fly around the centre, upwards towards the top, where the points meet.  Almost half of my blocks were wrong!.


This may have been the reason they ended up in the "too hard"box 6 years ago.  Who does not hate unpicking?

Two hours back on this project, and I had the job of unpickin 2 FG strips on almost half of the blocks.  It took me half a day, but I did it.

Row number two added

Row number 3 added

Row number 4 added, and I am running out of space on my floor to take photos.

Finally, all the blocks are assembled, with the sashing.  Time to get those 4 patch blocks out and see what I can do with the borders.

I had to lay them down on the the passage floor to get a shot.  However, I did measure them against the quilt and, low and behold, they fit!  Even the the top and bottom borders fit......and that was pure luck.  I had turned this into a rectangle quilt rather than a square quilt, and had no idea if the top and bottom borders would be ok...half a 4 patch too short or too long?.....no .....they fit!  I had visions of having to slip in a skinny strip of fabric along the edges to make it all fit, but looks like it is not necessary.

This past week I have done very little else about the house, but it seems to be worth it to get this old beauty finished.

How am I going to quilt it?????  I am not skilled enough to machine quilt it myself, and hand quilting is my preference, but there are so many seams, I think it is going to be hard going.  Custom machine quilting I think might be the answer, and I will investigate the options there.  Any ideas?