Taking it Step by Step is Sometimes the Only Way Forward

You've seen it once, you've seen it a hundred times! I get that, but still this is one of those projects that I can't seem to attack in one mad weekend.

All the melons sewn together
for the Pickle Dish/Wedding Ring

Mostly I just take little bites out of it and then move on until I can come back with fresh enthusiasm (or maybe I lose a little bit of my scaredy-pants intimidation each time?). Now, finally, all the squares are sewn onto the arcs and I have 48 melons assembled. Whew! That part was surprisingly easy. You probably thought I already had that done, but no..., only half of them. In case you hadn't noticed, I've been procrastinating on this quilt every single chance I get.

Pickle Dish/Wedding Ring layout details

I pulled out my proposed background and played with the parts and pieces (several times) until I convinced myself there wouldn't be too much clash going on with all the weird blues and aquas. I took polls from my family (esp. the daughter in advanced art class) and tried to ignore the fact that they don't actually know that much about quilting other that what they like or don't like. I'm sure they were thinking 'get it off of the living room floor already!', but I wanted to be absolutely sure.

Honestly, after all the agonizing, I've decided I'm totally on board with it now. In fact, I'm falling in love again. Yep. My hope is that it will come off more as a primitive look rather than a 'that quilter didn't have a clue what she was doing' look. Fingers crossed on that one! The best Wedding Ring quilt I have ever seen was a clunky, off-kilter, scrappy bit of a mess and I know I don't quite achieve that particular look. Maybe someday in the future? lol

Gotta applique the eyes

The eyes for the center are all cut out and ready to go now too. I pinned this one to the melon to see if it would 'do' and although I cheated and found a melon it blended perfectly with, I'm definitely sold on the combo. There's a little bit of applique (for other projects) that I've promised myself needs to get finished up first, but I can tell this part won't take very long at all. Onward Ho! The next step after this one is the part I've been absolutely dreading, practically breaking out in a cold sweat over just the thought of doing. I freely admit--I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to something that seems complicated or out of my 'box'. What about you?