Behind the scenes, or quilting with effort

Here's an update on my wonky log cabin blocks, which I've been sacrificing sleep, neglecting my husband and kids, and skipping showers to work on because I'm so obsessed. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that my sewing machine and I were living in different zip codes for six months. This is the second half of the post, How to Make Everything Seem Effortless...or not.

12 blocks done, complete with sashing strips. Yay!

Only 11 are pictured because I'd already taken lucky #12 off to be cropped. And they're on the floor because I haven't had time to put the design wall up yet.

It's time to make a 15-1/2" square of clear plastic template material and give the blocks one last twist. Except that in my quick run to Hobby Lobby, I could only find 12" x 18" clear plastic template material. No problem--I'll buy two and make my own large square. Not effortless.

So I'm busy working on this when I should be doing something else, because it'll only take 10 minutes. Twenty minutes later, I'm still.cutting.through.the.#&$(#$.plastic. Not effortless.

Taping the pieces together--accidentally taped it to create a 15" square first. Second try, the tape I'm using wrinkles and puckers. Not effortless.

I finally get to cutting. Here's a mental picture: I like to cut on the floor. Putting my knee on the ruler/template. And then I rotate around the board so I'm always cutting at the most comfortable angle. 

Not effortless.

And, even though I had so much trouble cutting through the template material, I am positioning my ruler on top before each cut, because it would be just my luck to have the rotary cutter suddenly cut through the plastic like butter if I didn't use the ruler. Lining up two transparent pieces of plastic to cut a straight line? So fun. And, all together now: Not effortless.

An hour after I start, I have one block cropped to template size and two pictures taken to share the process with you. I left the wrinkles in on the cropped block just to keep it real. Don't want to set too high of expectations!

11 more to crop, and then it's assembly time! Note the pieced template square.

I'll get better at this semi-professional blog show and tell. But in the meantime, hope you enjoyed this little behind-the-scenes peek at reality, while I sit here with my feet up, eating bon-bons.