Yep, it's all hand-pieced.
Nope, it didn't convert me to hand-piecing.
Or templates.
It came out to around 9 1/4" instead of the required 9 1/2", something that a lot of people in the class said in their message boards, so it's a common issue. I had measured my PDF print-out of the templates quite carefully, so that wasn't the problem. I suspect it had to do with the multitude of error possibilities in the template process that I talked about on my podcast, plus when I was hand-piecing I was stitching right on the lines, whereas perhaps I should've been doing scant seam allowances instead. Who knows?
templates and pieces marked
I'm very tempted to rip it all out and re-do it by machine to see if I could get it closer to the required size, but I've decided to wait until after February's blocks--there's two of them--to see what size those measure out to. There are some bias edges involved, and I don't think I've got enough fabric to recut pieces, so it would be almost more of a risk to take everything apart and re-do it. Hence, pushing the pause button and adopting a "wait-and-see" attitude.
I'll be doing February's blocks by machine. Although I did get into a groove and had pretty even stitches after the first couple of pieces, I just didn't find the process Zen enough to warrant taking that long on a single block again. I withheld my final judgment until I saw the finished block--I was willing to decide it would be the way to go if my final block were somehow a better or at least equal product to what I can do by machine. Ahem. Nope.
Yes, it's possible to sew a piece on upside down even when "slow quilting" (snail's pace) by hand. At least it's easier to rip the seams out!
I know, I'd get better and more accurate if I kept doing it by hand, I'm sure. But here's the thing--ya gotta wanna. I'm not sure I'm particularly interested in becoming an expert hand-piecer.
I'm still doing hand-work with the embroidery, so I've got plenty of TV-ready work to do. Meanwhile, I'm a machine-piecing-girl at heart, as it turns out. Not overly a surprise.
Meanwhile, I've got some snow-dyeing happening in the basement. Feels good to be playing with dyes again!