Rocket boy, or how I learned to loathe triangles...

Pob Doll was posted at the weekend, and I hate to say it but I almost shed a tear.  Well, it was meant to be a representation of my brother after all, and he only emigrated in March...  And I do miss him a lot.  

In the mean time I've been busy piecing together the second of the mini quilts I'm making for Christmas.  Okay so I haven't actually quilted the first one, Monkey Quilt, yet but I did get round to basting it today...  With a little help from my man pulling it taut for me.  I tried out the basting spray, which I'm not at all convinced with so I tried out the basting gun as well!  (almost half price on Cotton Patch right now, I couldn't resist..)  I'll see how it all pans out tomorrow when I finally get round to some machine quilting. 

Anyway. Rocket Boy Quilt.  I used a layout of HST (half square triangles), lots of big triangles to make the most of the fabby retro rocket boy fabric (Michael Miller fabric, which I love...).  In amongst these I'm putting a few triangles made of smaller triangles, using some stars fabric, and a little of Michael Miller "Dick & Jane" fabric range.  Its my first time doing triangles, all my previous attempts at quilting have been square based.  Time to be a bit more adventurous...

The large triangles went swimmingly well, got them all done in one evening.  The smaller triangles however... 
I spent an evening cutting out all the smallest triangles I needed.  Then pieced the first group.

Waaaaaaaay to small.  Sod it.  There must be a formula for working with triangles that I don't know about.  It clearly isn't the same as squares...  Of course when I saw it all together I realised that of course I'd cut them far too small, and of course you would lose a lot more fabric in the seams than with squares.  But I clearly didn't put enough thought into it before cutting.  Oh well.  Mistake made, lesson learned.

Or so I thought.  Either my narcolepsy was kicking in and my concentration and short term memory were shot, or I was just particularly stupid, but I did exactly the same thing the following evening.   I think it was narcolepsy...  Not that I don't think I'm capable of utter stupidity.  But that particular days sewing had started with me sitting down at the machine and waking up face down on the table 20 minutes later.  Then doing it again.  This time with drool.  So, might not really have been in the right frame of mind to cut more triangles.  
After a day off spent sleeping every time I sat down, I went back to it and finally got it right. 

Et voila.  Rocket Boy Quilt top 99% done.

CONFESSION:  I did not come up with this design off the top of my head, it was inspired by (or copied from, but not intentionally) a beautiful quilt by a wonderful quilt designer Red Pepper Quilts .   I hope I dont get into trouble as I really did think I'd thought of it but I was browsing Red Pepper Quilts the other night and I saw her "urban circus" quilt and thought..."bugger. might have known it was something I'd seen before, it was way too cool for me..."  However its not for sale its a gift, and I promise I wont do it again...

Actually I should also point out that Monkey Quilt is based on Red Pepper Quilts "bricks and stones" but I did pay for that pattern!

The 99% is due to this little square which I'm going to embroider.

I also set up another project for doing in front of the telly...  From denim mini (no not mine, my ass hasn't been that small in decades) to shoulder bag.  With a bit of embroidery on it of course. 

Here's one I made earlier...