Mon Début - En Provence Part Six (#1)

It's been a while since I have posted. I have been quilting a little, and I have been traveling a lot. I think I am just going to start from here and move forward and not worry about trying to fill in the "missing" posts from the past.

I had another Sewing Day, and it was so much fun. I invited several people to come over and sew with me. It was just what I needed to get back into a sewing frame of mind.

I have been dying to work on Bonnie Hunter's new mystery quilt, En Provence. I was in Europe for Weeks One through Four and all I could do was read the clues that were published each week.

I was back home for Week Five, but I had not had a chance to buy the fabric. I am not a person with a large stash, so a project like this requires a lot of shopping. I made one trip to a quilt shop right after I got home and got a few pieces of fabric. I naively thought I could get all of my fabric there because I knew exactly what I wanted. The only problem was the fabric in my mind's eye was not in the quilt shop.

A few days later I went to some quilt shops with Susan. One shop was closed. 😞 Three were open and I found more fabric, but I still didn't have enough.  (At some point during this expedition I lost my clip-on FitBit.😧) 

You have to go around to all of the quilt shops and see what is there, then you sometimes have to go back to buy fabric after you have seen everything. So, after Susan and I had hit two shops we decided to go to the one I had already been to. I did find a couple of additional fabrics on my second visit there.

The next day I broke down and went to Jo-Ann's. I found a handful of prints that I could use. Some of them were not good quality fabric, but I have been everywhere in town. It's often a choice between good fabric quality vs. colors and prints that I like.

So here we are at Week Six and I am just joining the party. Here is a link to the party: Bonnie Hunter's Link-up

Here are my fabrics.

The colors

The neutrals

As I did last year, I will be making a half-size version of the quilt.

I had no trouble making the units for Week Six. I used Bonnie Hunter's new Essential Triangle Tool . It worked great. I like it better than the Marti Michell templates. It is easier to use because you are working with a large tool rather than a small template. You don't have to press so hard and it doesn't slip on you.

Week Six units

I did not remember to take photos of the all the projects that got worked on during my Sewing Day, but they were all impressive.
  Barbara (Our Third Thirds) made these clever wine glass coasters for her book club:


Lesson learned:
Sewing is better with friends