Shauna's World: Road Trip Across Texas QAL

I'm sad that I can't show you a great quilt finish, but I have a good reason. I didn't finish one. Ok I did get one almost finished, just needs to be bound and labeled, but it is a gift so I can't show it until I've actually given it away. And just let me say it is very very cute.

Now I did get somethings done this week, not big things but still accomplishments. To start I am participating in the Road Trip Across Texas QAL and I've gotten my fabric. Now this may not seem like a big deal, but I struggle to put fabrics together, and since this one requires 108 2 1/2" squares, 78 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 rectangles, etc. It is a challenge for me. I had one set of fabric picked out but decided I wanted more variety. So I went looking and found something I loved, but of course it was last years fabric. Luckily I found some FQ bundles on Esty and got them ordered. They arrived last night. So my pick for fabric is....Alison Glass' Sun Prints.

Is that not just the prettiest thing you ever saw? Ok I admit I bought a lot of fabric here, more than I will need, but it will give me lots of variety in my quilt and what I have left over can go into a scrappy trip quilt. I found the feather's fabric first and that just made me want the whole line. I think I'm going to use Kona Ash or Kona Graphite as my background, but haven't picked just yet.

Sharla is also doing a quilt but her fabrics are from the line Texas Lone Star State. What can I say, she is a Texas girl through and through. I have to admit I almost went with the same fabric, because it is hard to resist bluebonnets. The black is going to be her background on the front and the black with bluebonnets is her backing.

The QAL is divided into 15 stops and each stop will have a special block. So far two have come out this week Dallas and Tyler. Dallas' block is a paper pieced block of a ferris wheel to represent the ferris wheel at Fair Park where the State Fair is held every year. I haven't done a lot of paper piecing so I knew I wanted to do a practice block (and I am so glad I did). Sharla wanted to do a practice block as well. I had gotten some wash out foundation paper, to use and let's just be honest here...I HATE it. It is washed out great, except under the seams and you can see the printing. Also it was much stiffer. Having said that I also found a problem with one of the wedges, one the lines was not on it. So my block looks much rougher than Sharla's, but we learned lots from doing both of them. She didn't set her stitch length close enough so it was tough tearing the foundation paper away. Also you will see that I didn't use a big enough piece on one of my wedges, but over all we learned a lot and I'm sure our real blocks will be even better.