I showed you a bit of this quilt already, which I’m making from a kit. (Here’s my earlier post on the Moonglow Quilt.) I’ve been making slow progress on this quilt top. I switched to paper piecing for these two blocks and am happier with the results. Here are blocks #4 and #5:

The strange thing is that I’m not really enjoying the process of creating this quilt. I’ve admired it for years and wanted to make it since first glimpse. I’ve done paper piecing with Judy Niemeyer’s quilts, like this one, Jumpin’ Jack Flash (which still needs to be quilted):

But I’m not feeling the love with the Moonglow. It feels like a chore, which is disappointing. I think it’s because the blocks are hard to sew together. I paper-pieced the star of #4, for example, but the octagon in the middle had to be appliqued in by hand.

For #5, only the four outer quadrants could be paper pieced and it wasn’t a lot of fun getting that green star in the middle so that the center laid flat. I did the middle three times and finally stitched it by hand. It’s still not perfect but I’m done with it. #6 is a star with a star in the middle – it’s the second one from the top in the fourth column – so we’ll see how that goes.

Instead of savoring every moment, I’m kind of glad to have only 7 blocks left to piece. Next are the two in the second column, then the four corner blocks (there are actually two designs and you make two of each), and finally the middle block. My mood will probably change when I start assembling the top together, since I’m likely to get excited about the result when I see it coming together. I’ve cut the outer borders but haven’t sewn them yet, and haven’t decided how to quilt this one.

In the meantime, onward….