Friday, February 4, 2011

I have begun!!


So I have gotten all the large squares of the front of my quilt sewn together! See, I keep calling it a quilt, but when I pick up a book on quilting, it is and will be significantly different than what I'm doing. I'm really just making a blanket out of squares. If you call it a quilt I'm probably doing it wrong.
Speaking of wrong, here's my first gigantic mistake. I had cut all my large sqaures 12x12. I had started it before a year ago, but had no real idea how to cut. They were 13x13 last year so that left me some room to play when I restarted this year. The deal with actual quilt cutting is that you must cut to near perfection and sew a perfect 1/4" seam, which means at the end of the day all your squares and corners and triangles or whatever else you cut match up. My squares from last year would have left me with a triangle shaped blanket I'm sure. Just horrible. Ok... back to my mistake this year...I cut my big ones 12x12 and wanted to use more of the discontinued fabric (cuz its in my train) so I decided to make the periodic smaller squares. I cut them 6x6... half right? Ha. So after I sewed them all together using my perfect 1/4" seam, guess what size that square was? Snap. Not 12x12 anymore! My whole thing will be off and I'm out of that fabric! I could have gone back and cut all my other ones, but if you haven't learned that I'm lazy yet, you will now know. I don't think so. I tried my darnedest to fix it by using a 1/2" seam on the big squares while piecing it all together. A real quilter would probably be grimacing right now.
I would assume that one is supposed to sew all the peices of the rows together and then sew them into rows. With perfection as discussed before, this would magically make a quilt. I learned quickly that my squares were still not cut perfectly enough and that my 1/2" seam here and 1/4" seam there made for some not so perfect sewing. I sewed most of the pieces one by one so that I could stretch the appropriate side just enough to get seams to match. Fun.
Anyways, bottom line... it don't look so bad! Moving to the back; and taking on diagonal squares! Oh ya, no large, boring single piece of fabric on the back of my quilt! Ha ha ha!

2 comments:

  1. Looks good so far! I would have given up and packed it in the back of the closet or thrown it away. I have no patience. I have to give you loads of credit for carrying on. I can't wait to see the finished product - and then you can make me one.

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  2. Thank you! I have an entire armoir dedicated to lost projects. I guess I have to finish one someday! I'd love to make you one! My going rate is $600. Maybe a 10% family discount.

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