And onto May and June for my Ostrich

So May 1st dawned bright and early and I turned on the computer in great anticipation to see what was in store for us this month.........

Curves........... oh, right, what do we do with that then?

No way was I even going to consider curved piecing - don't like straight piecing never mind curved, although I was a pretty mean dressmaker in my teens and early twenties and setting in a sleeve never bothered me - but I digress. No, the 'A' word was coming into play again :o)

So I added a deepish pink border and appliqued a curvy top onto it with the 'freezer paper on the top' method that I always use. Then in those curves I added opposite circles about the size of a UK 1p piece probably just short of 2cms in diameter. Then I finished it off with a contrasting thin border - May done!













And so onto June - the remit for June was........... 'Flying Geese or any other type of bird'

I have to say this month I pre-empted the subject. I'd recently been to Quilts UK at Malvern and never having been any good at all at piecing had been seduced by a set of little plastic ruler/templates that made the production of flying geese childs play - or so they claimed. (they did actually :o) for a numpty like me!)

I did think to myself at some point flying geese are bound to come up in the challenge so one quiet weekend I decided to try them out and came up with four strips of geese in alternate sizes that I could then put on each side of my work adding as much plain border with them as was necessary depending on the size of my work at this point.

I have a mortal fear of working out how many blocks are needed to fit along side something - this was another reason for appliqueing those nine patches. No matter how carefully I calculate, stitch a quarter inch seam and assemble, most times it always seems to be a tug or squidge to make a length of blocks fit their receiving seam - ??? Maybe you all find this and just smile sweetly and don't own up to it as this is normal but I find it very frustrating and disconcerting - hence the unease with piecing.

So you can imagine my delight when I found that my hunch had been right - my June round was almost complete before it had begun. I added some more thin borders for definition and then attached the four sets all at the same end of their side of the border and proceeded to applique some 'free' geese flying between them to join them up - another month done :o) Never one to do things by halves this time I stuck on three more thin borders just to pick up all the colours again and I was ready for July.............................