Even though I had the perfect station set-up for working on my DWR quilt arcs, and I figured out how to align the fabric squares properly for paper foundation piecing, it was slow going. I tried to chain piece but it wasn't proving to be faster and I felt the paper and fabric were being pulled as they dangled off the back of the sewing machine.
While chain piecing wasn't working, assembly line methods were! That's how Henry Ford, the man who perfected the progressive assembly technique, helps me quilt. I worked on the same 'part' of each arc before moving on to the next phase. I stitched each section of fabric (A-G) on each required foundation before trimming the fabric. Then I pressed all the squares open. Then I trimmed all the arcs. This made the process much faster and I think I have improved on my 5-1/2 minutes per arc time.
I am almost finished the first quarter of arcs (plum: dark to light), only 45 of the 194 needed. I am a little worried about the next step: folding over the trimmed 1/4" seam of the arcs onto the foundation paper. They are trimmed by eye and some of my seams are pretty scant. Gail makes it look very easy and smooth and even though I ordered the special glue from her, I'm concerned that it won't be strong enough to hold down my scant seam allowances.
I'm still managing to make mistakes and some I don't even understand what I did. Maybe I was sewing too late when too sleepy because in the morning I found a couple of arcs where I had stitched...nothing! I had sewn a square of fabric on the paper with no fabric on top of it. I'm not sure how I did that but lesson learned!
I am enjoying the process though and even though I know it's going to take forever, I can't see myself interrupting the DWR quilt to start another. With the established set-up and my machine all ready with the correct settings and thread, it would be a pain to go back and forth. We have holidays coming up soon anyway so I guess this will be my project for the next couple months.
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