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Thursday, July 17, 2008

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! :-)

1 comment:

Helen in the UK said...

Saw your message on Quiltvillechat about your Thangles sew between project and had to check it out!!
The colours of those fabrics are gorgeous and (sloppy stiching or not) I'm sure it's going to make a wonderful quilt :)