A vulpine venture

After work tonight, I rooted through the box of fabric scraps and cut out the 14 pieces needed for a practice Fancy Fox quilt block:

Less than 45 minutes later, a finished block looked up at me. During assembly, I found I cut the white fabric the wrong size so changed those out for yellow/white pieces:

Oh, dear, I am rather hard on the eyes.

Positives: I only put in one piece upside down (one moon is doing a headstand), and only had to unpick one seam that I sewed together the wrong way. The two triangles at the bottom are supposed to overlap exactly as they do.

Negatives: I am certain I had all the pieces the right size and stitched with 1/4″ seams, yet the lower part of the block came out narrower than the top forehead/ears part. I have to re-measure tomorrow with fresh eyes to see if it’s me and my cutting or stitching, or a typo in the piece measurements given in the pattern. Getting all pieces lined up exactly will come with practice.

I am glad I did this because… I have to shop for fabric. Again. The project requires 4 types: I have a pile of shirts to cut up for the faces and a dark swirly navy for the noses and eyes; I don’t have a pale fabric for the cheeks or anything for the background. I planned to stitch the blocks and shop for background fabric further on, but I learned here that the background (purple) is required for block assembly. You can’t add it later. Binding and backing fabric can wait.

Research question, also for tomorrow: When piecing, is it usual to cut squares when the goal is triangles or trapezoids? It seems a waste of fabric to cut squares and sew them together, then cut off a chunk to get your diagonal line. Though thinking about sewing a triangle’s edge on the bias makes me cringe.

Tomorrow is Furlough Friday, during which I will spin. I joined the “Spindlers” Ravelry group’s monthly challenge of spinning a skein in a month (see last post’s end photo) and tomorrow’s the 15th and I am not at the halfway point yet, so some serious twirling is in order. Whee!