I'm not so sure I've been this productive in awhile. After the successful cutting and pressing and sewing of Friday, I followed up with a few hours each on Saturday and Sunday. The Cub Scout/Boy Scout event turned out to be one in which I did not have to stay out in the woods for 6 hours. So I headed home and added another set of logs to my blocks. After burning myself on my iron (fortunately just a first degree - matches the one I got from the oven on Friday) and then cutting myself with my rotary trimmer - YEP it is sharp, I decided someone was telling me to go pick up my son (that and the phone call from one of the leaders that they were winding up a little earlier than planned).
Sunday morning Gus and I headed out a O'dark 30 to his Select team hockey game in Greensboro. The Sharks played a really good game, but unfortunately lost 3-2. We played the same team a week ago and won 4-3 in another closely matched game. I manged to get another hour of quilting in, which allowed me to get the next two logs sewn on, though the second was neither pressed nor trimmed before we headed out to the second hockey game. Sharks won handily (the House team) and Gus scored twice - first time he has scored multiple goals in a game. His lifetime total goals now numbers 7 and he has 6 assists I think.
After coming home and finally getting a wired child to bed, I headed back to press the last set of light logs. I then decided that I absolutely did not like the third dark log I chose - and since the third light log was in place, there was not really an option to just have two sets of logs (no way was I going to pull out 32 seams). Mike agreed that the stripes were just too busy. So I pulled the red with white dots that I intended for use on the back, and cut 8 strips. Though the logs won't follow the pattern of gradually getting darker as you move your eye from the center, there really isn't much traditional about these blocks. I got the first set attached and they are waiting to be pressed - hopefully before I start cooking our Thanksgiving dinner (must go shopping).
A note on the strip piecing of these blocks - I made this larger than the instructions in the book - 10 inch blocks instead of 8 inch blocks - and spent some time using an excel spreadsheet in order to calculate the new yardages since the ones in the chart provided were for the 8 inch blocks. One thing I did learn is that it pays to cut an extra strip, especially for the outer logs - fortunately I had carefully laid the fabrics to one side so I didn't have to start from scratch on squaring the fabrics. While the math worked out that I'd have enough inches for each of the logs, the reality is that one also needs to figure out how many logs you can get from the 42 usable inches. For the red with white dots, I ended up cutting the strips so that I would remember to use for two of log 1 and two of log 2 in that set as it was not possible to get four of log 2 from a single strip. Fortunately I figured it out before wasting fabric.
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