Star Trek, and a Little Sewing

In the newly released Star Trek movie, Into Darkness, Starship Enterprise Commander Pike asks Spock, "Spock, are you giving me attitude?"  With a straight face and no emotion, Spock replies, "I am giving you several attitudes simultaneously. To which are you referring?" Love that quote, might use it sometime. Saw this movie in 3D Imax.  If you like Star Trek at all, this is the way to see it.  Very real, very good.

Magnolia Quilt, back detail

Anyway, on the quilting front, I have managed to get in a bit of sewing. On Wednesday, it was stormy and rainy out, and I was sewing about 14 hours. I surfaced only to feed the hungry masses.  I got all the blocks made for the Magnolia quilt, and today it was nice outside, so I was out there laying out the back. I see in the photo that it now looks like a UFO, as in flying saucer, not unfinished object!

That medallion is 68" across, and there is A LOT of  handsewing ahead, around both circles, and to join up some of the petals. I wasn't sure all those petals would align flat when I laid them down. There are a lot of seams, all of them on angles, with long seams. This struck me as having great potential for inaccuracy, so I built in strategies just in case. Good thing, too. I made each section in half, and ended up cutting the outer ring into quarters.  If you ever do this pattern this big, I see now that the best way to be accurate would be to mark the background fabric, and stitch your petals along those lines right to the backing. Would save you a lot of grief!

The whole thing was a little too big, so I cut the outside ring into quarters, and moved it in towards the centre.  I do like the way it is going, though, and I think when I get borders and corner fans on, it will be fantastic. I wanted to get the front laid out outside today, too, but the thunderstorms were moving in, so I'll resume tomorrow.

Linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday blog, here. Have a look at what other great quilty people are doing.