Monday Morning Star Count, June 29th

Ok, ok, ok.  You know how sometimes you think you don't like something, but then you see your friend trying it so you get curious?

I feel.. intrigued.  Scared.  but very curious..
Next week Diane is having the next phase of her All Points Patchwork blog hop, theme:
Apple Cores.

So I volunteered to participate.  I'm nuts, right?  I am not scared of sewing curves (by hand or machine), and I can EPP in my sleep, but what has me intimidated and at the same time, motivated, is the need to thread baste through the papers.  Sure, I could finally try glue basting too, but I want to give traditional thread basting a try.   If I end up with a glue stick by the end of next week, you'll hear all about it.

So I ordered templates from paperpieces.com and I got this really cool acrylic template (I'll explain more in my blog hop post on the 10th).  I cut up some fabric and gave it a shot..

What surprised me at first was that it takes a long time to do this... I think I've just got so much experience with diamonds and hexagons (and cutting the patches with a ruler and rotary cutter) that having to slow down and cut out no more than two patches at a time just felt like it was taking forever.  My initial attempts at basting went pretty slowly too.  I think it took me about 35-40 minutes to baste these 4 templates while chatting with a friend.  I know things will speed up the more I do, but for now.. hmm.  it's not as bad as I feared.  The thread basting is calm and soothing, quite enjoyable, so long as you're not in a rush.  My blog hop project idea calls for maybe 40-50 apple cores so I've got a ways to go yet.  I'll let you know how it goes..

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Are you working on an English Paper Piecing project?  If you want to share your progress, write a blog post or upload a pic to flickr or instagram and link to it here!  Make sure to tell us how many units you have and how many more you need to go~

1.	Becky @ Quilting Veterinarian	5.	Heather @ Based on a True Story
2.	Terri @ Hexy Lady	6.	Katie
3.	Pamela	7.	Vicki Sews - EPP Stars
4.	Maureen	8.	Vicki Sews - Farmers Wife Progress

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