Thangles, BOM '07-'08

This year, for the first time, I have participated in my local shops 'Buck-A-Block' Block of the Month club using Thangles. It goes like this (at least at my store, it may differ from shopt to shop): At the beginning you buy the pack of thangles - for more info check http://www.thangles.com/. Then every month your store supplies you with the material and a pattern for to make a square using Thangles. As long as you show them your completed block from last month, you only pay $1. At my shop, if you need back months, like I did for this go round, you pay $3. You also pay $3 if you didn't finish last month's square but you still want to buy this month.

My shop goes from July to July so we just finished the last year of blocks. I came at it a few months late. We were choosing from oriental fabrics and batiks. I went with batiks.

I was really using this project as a 'sew-between'. I hate those dangling threads that come everytime you pull something out of your machine. So I keep a 'sew-between' project on hand. It needs to be a project that requires little or no planning. I just chain stitch a square, piece or thangle in after I'm done with my main project, and leave it in the machine until the next time I come to sew. This way I am always chain sewing and never have pesky dangling threads. (Many people call these pieces 'Leaders & Enders'... I think maybe Bonnie Hunter came up with the term... But I've always called the project that is continuously underfoot a 'sew-between' because it's the project that you are sewing between the times you are working on your 'REAL' projects! LOL.

So for this project, I got a little sloppy a few times. Using thangles, every single individual triangle always comes out perfect. But I wish I was a little more careful when I was sewing my pieces together. Now that I am assembling my quilt top, I'm noticing my sloppy workmanship.

Lesson for me: Even 'Sew-Betweens' deserve good workmanship!

Here is a picture of my progress so far:




Don't look too hard or you will see my SLOP! :-)