I Can Change My Mind With The Best of Them

So I think I am going to live now.  No sense in getting the baby because we are so sick at the house, it wouldn't be good for him.

Frank is now sick.  Sunday he left for his National Sales Meeting. So I was dealing with it all alone here, and I have to admit, the  dogs were interrupting my dying process.  He started to get a cough and decided to come home early.  Good thing he did, he is Chair of the CAAWS Mystic Krewe of Mutts this Sunday.  He HAS to be well.

I made him go to the doctor today.  He swore he wasn't coughing so didn't ask doc for cough medicine.  And he has coughed for two days and is still coughing tonight.  Geez.

So I felt good enough to care about quilting today.  I worked on one of the patterns in the Kathy Doughty books.  This one is big weird butterflies.

It started with a 10 degree ruler 24 inches long.

Here are the first strips cut.  So far so good.

Each ray is 24 inches long, it is 50 inches across!  Remember that  fact.  It is important.

Filled it in with the second color.

Boy this uses a lot of fabric.  And they are huge!

I had planned on using this ugly print that first came into my life in the ill fated Modern Guild Challenge during the flood.  I hated it then.  My feelings have not changed.

I changed to this one that worked with the colors better.  However, the colors of all the butterflies are not similar to this one.

At some point I taped out the dimensions of the first block as given in the pattern.  Something like 22 x 24.

Sorry, no pictures at this stage as I was frustrated and on codeine cough syrup.

The quilt in the book has a large black and white leaf.  I actually had some of that fabric but it was used on the back of one of my quilts. 

So I pulled a BW leaf from my stash and used it.  One of the reasons I wanted to tape off and cut the block down was because I saw there was a tremendous amount of wasted fabric.

The idea is to cut them in various dimensions by moving the tape to a different location.  Is that clear sounding?











Now I needed the center butterfly body.   It was in one of the two pull out sections.  Of course it was not in the first one I pulled out.














 Just yesterday, I received the curve Carol of Quilted Fiber Art had sent me.  Using it already, girlfriend!













I cut it out of some thick paper.

And it was huge.


So I cut it down a bit, twice.

Here is the template placed on the butterfly.  It will eventually be black.

Not sure I am liking this any better.  I definitely liked it better with the orange.

Here is the amount of wasted fabric and sewing time just on the two wing sections.  Not a fan of that, my friend.

And the corner blocks were cut 22 x 22 so there was a lot of the waste there as well.   The smaller one is only 8 x 8.  Now I could use the other side of the squares for the next butterfly.

But what would I do with leftover wings?  LOL  Remember those wedges were 24 inches long so that is at least 12 inches of wing span.


So.

Where do I go from here.  I am not really feeling this one.  And I don't think it is the sickness that has beset upon me talking.  Although, something makes me want to do a second one.  I am already thinking about a modern design that would incorporate the two so it wouldn't be a total loss.

And I am going to link up to the Ad Hoc Improv Quilter at Sew Slowly.  The others are doing much better than I today!