Let the Sun Shine

It's been a rare gray, overcast day.  A good time to work on the sun I wanted to my tea towel challenge quilt. The sun is approximately 25 inches wide.

Part of the challenge is to use new techniques, so for this sun, I decided to try something I saw in a workshop with Mary Bacjz, using kitchen parchment paper.

I pulled off a large sheet, laid it in place at the top of the quilt section, and started with my large circle template–AKA the lid to my wok–to draw the curve for the sun.

Then I opened the yardstick ruler that has been languishing with my quilt gadgets for YEARS and used it to draw the parallel outside curve that would contain the sun's rays.



I used a piece of painters tape and marked where the center of the circle defined by the arc would be, to make it possible to draw concentric circles.

I could have pulled out a protractor to divide the arc equally, but realized it would be easy to just fold it, first into quarters and then into eighths.  I creased the folds, then opened the paper, marked the folds and used them to draw the (approximately) equal sections and rays.

Once the pattern was drawn, I cut it into three sections.  The arc with the sun rays was used as a foundation to piece that section.  The parchment paper is lightweight and even though I was using a large piece of it, it was easy to manipulate.

The inner and outer sections became templates.  I've added the base of the sun so far.  After I've pieced the background, I'll use the outside piece of the parchment as a template and complete the block.

1. Two Arcs, 2. Design, folded into quarters, 3. Folded into eighths,
4. Marking the folds, 5. Drawing the sun's rays, 6. Completed Design,
7. Cut into sections, 8. Foundation piecing on Parchment Paper, 9. Sun section

I'm sharing this as part of the Block Lotto's Weekend Update Linky Party.  The theme this weekend is Tips, Tricks and Lessons Learned.

A big lesson learned for me, is to be open to everything you learn in workshops because you never know when you'll find a reason to use something you thought you'd never use :-) 

If you aren't a follower of my blog, you may also want to check out some blog posts with tips earlier this week: 

A couple of appliqué preparation ideas (including quarters as one inch circle templates and a print-friendly Tip Sheet for making Free-pieced Rose blocks.