practicing, pattern testing, and paper-piecing

I've probably mentioned it;

I'm not a big fan of paper piecing.

Foundation paper piecing, that is,

English paper piecing, I like very much.

It's just so fiddly,

I think.

I kept forgetting which way faced 'out' and ever so carefully sewed the butterfly and the pearls facing inwards. 

When I was perusing some of the quilts in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival,

I happened upon this beauty. 

And I thought,

maybe,

just maybe,

I might give FPP another whirl.

I  obsessively checked kept checking back to see if the pattern was available.

Sylvia sent me a note apologizing that she was a bit behind on releasing the pattern.

There was a little snafu with a pattern tester...

So I offered to be a pattern tester for her

(albeit a completely inexperienced one!)

in place of the one that got away.

But then I didn't hear back from her.

Until I did. 
Last Wednesday afternoon.

And she wondered if I was still interested,

and if I could get back to her with my results in 2-3 weeks.

I told her I couldn't pull off a whole quilt top in that time frame, 

but I could do a mini,

which should be plenty to tell how things work.

I'm happy to report that her pattern is super.

I'm still not a big fan of (foundation) paper piecing though.

(I think part of it, this time around, 

is that I have been so busy that I've only managed to work on it in tiny little chunks of time.
And I sorta feel rushed, because I decided to use an Independence Day theme,
so my deadline is approaching more quickly than hers.

Plus - the papers.

I hate peeling off the paper!

I think I may give this method a go, because I really do love the quilt!)

This will be my first time piecing curves.

So far, I haven't let myself get too nervous about it.

We'll see how I feel when I actually sit down to sew them...

~

I'd planned on settling on thread
for my commissioned project
(I ordered a couple of choices, and they arrived Saturday :-)
and practicing yesterday,
totally forgetting that we'd be gone a good portion of day  : /

Hopefully, I will be able to get to that today.
But then we'll be gone all day tomorrow,
so I won't be able to make much progress.

Linking up with Lee, paper piecer extraordinaire