Minky Bullseye

A few weeks ago I wrote that one of Eagle1's buddies downrange was drafting his own quilt pattern. He chose a black, red and white color scheme in a bullseye pattern using Minky fabric. Drawing up a scale pattern along with cutting diagram and shopping list took little time at all. Finding a decent price on 17 yards of Minky was a different story.

It's all here though, and in less than a week, too! So, I spent today washing and drying, then trying my hand at the dreaded stretchy, slippery, super soft, oh-so-cuddly mountain on my cutting table. Thankfully, I did a bunch of research before the box of goodies even arrived, and I have to say I'm so very grateful to everyone who posted tips and tricks for working with this stuff. So far, the hardest part is getting all of the nap to flow in the same direction so that it doesn't look sloppy. (We won't talk about the 10 different times I had to vacuum the sewing room because of the "minky snow" left from cutting!) It's coming along though and at a quicker pace than I expected. Even with all of the horror stories I've read, I'll say that I haven't experienced any of them...yet. By far, my favorite thing about Minky, besides the feel of it!, is that with a 1/2" seam allowance you don't have to mess with trying to press seams. They just naturally fall to either side and the only thing you have to worry about is making sure they stay that way when you piece the blocks together so that they stay flat. Quilting without a hot iron. Who'd have thought?