Color Wheel Central….part 2

When I left you yesterday I had finally sewn all of the inner strips together to form the inside square of the quilt. I did not add the final dark fabric to it since I knew that it would make the applique harder. Instead, I just pinned it to the design wall so that I could get an idea of what it would look like……

Now it was time to start placing the “Catherine Wheel” circles that will be hand appliqued. I knew that I needed to be careful placing the circles so that the arc was consistent from row to row. To solve that problem I pinned the first three arcs into place……

…..and drew a paper pattern from the middle row……

I cut this pattern out of cardboard and used it to place the other rows……

I used a Wash-out marker to draw around the circles so that I could easily place them as I worked thru the hand applique……

My concern was that the Red and Green arcs seemed to not fit as well. I was having to adjust the circle spacing to make them fit, but I finished it up anyway and was happy with how it looked……

I removed everything from the design wall and as I was getting ready to take out the last few pins, I noticed it…….

Do you see it?

The strips on the bottom left and top right are 2 inches smaller than the other ones!!!! No wonder I was having trouble fitting all of the circles into the space!!

So, I picked out both of those seams and added 2 inch strips to the outside…..

Once again there are now MORE seams for me to applique over!!!

At this point I was so disgusted that I washed off the markings for those two sets of arcs and put everything away for the day!! But that night I pulled it out and started the applique circles on the 6 arcs that are correct.

The applique process has been relaxing and, so far, I am happy with what how it looks…..

Today we packed for a 4 week trip in Europe (hubby works and I play), and I am not planning to take this project with me. But it WILL be here when I return and hopefully, I will be able to “sort-of” finish it up!!!

More to come….