WIP Wednesday: Swooning and a Little FMQ

The Flurry of Swoon blocks has begun: two down... seven to go!  So far, I love it!  There have been a few headaches.  Especially with the directional prints.  The seam ripper has been my go-to tool for a few nights.  But I think I finally have the hang of it - and most of the mistakes are due to working too late at night.  Stop quilting BEFORE you get tired.  If you don't, you'll just end up tired and frustrated.

I shared my first block the other day.  It took me two evenings to finish my second block.  One night was cutting, the second night was piecing.  And ripping out stitches.  And piecing.

Swoon Block 2

 You can see that all the diamonds are aligned the same way - but the way the cutting instructions for the pattern are written, you can't get everything to line up properly (not an issue if you're using more flowing, floral type fabrics).  I found that out the hard way... but I managed to use the scraps to fix my problem!  Rather than use one big rectangle (with the diamonds going the wrong way), I sewed two smaller rectangles together to get the directional pattern to line up.  It's not the prettiest, but it's way prettier than having ONE rectangle going the wrong way.  It was so distracting to look at!

How to work with directional fabrics and the Swoon pattern:
two pieces oriented the correct way, sewn together.

So that's my Swoon Block 2.  It looks so pretty with Swoon Block 1!

Swoon Blocks 1 and 2 - so pretty!

I've got my other 14 fat quarters all paired up and ready to go - two of them aren't really in this photo...  But I'm really excited to see them all come together.  Especially now that I've got a grip on the whole directional fabric pattern thing!

Lovely Flurry fabrics all ready to Swoon!

I've been a little slow at work lately, so I wasted spent some time watching Leah Day FMQ pattern videos on YouTube.  I really liked one of her paisley patterns - I forget what exactly she called it.  But it looked fairly simple, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  First on paper, then with the sewing machine!

Paisley design - pen and paper

Paisley FMQ design

As you can see, it can use some work!  But I'm pretty happy with it for a first attempt.  I was planning to use it on the Swoon quilt, but I'm considering incorporating it into Christmas Ribbons.  More to come on that as things come together - I have been doing some more straight-line quilting on it, but it's going to require a little something else - too many straight lines!

I'm linking this post up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced - be sure to stop by and see some beautiful projects!

-Melissa