My husband didn’t get why I thought it was such a disaster. I finished assembling a quilt top last night, intended to be a baby shower gift for a good friend. And I was livid.
I could tell it wasn’t going to come together well. The construction was in columns, alternating pieced sections with a long strip of solid-ish sashing. If it was all pieced perfectly, the sashing had to be 42.5″ long. The pattern said to just cut one long strip the entire width of the fabric. Guess what? Not long enough, even with the selveges still on. PATTERN FAIL. Honestly, this was from a book intended to be very easy quilts for beginners. If it’s supposed to be simple, then either make it a few inches smaller so that you can definitely get the size you need from one standard width of fabric, or make it a few inches longer and just say that the sashing has to be pieced. Argh.
Plus, the pieced columns were of different enough construction that a not-quite-perfect seam allowance was glaringly obvious in the cumulative effect. Doh. Usually I can get away with the fact that my seams aren’t quite perfect, but seem to be pretty consistent. Not this time.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure those were supposed to line up with each other. And that you shouldn’t have the entire selvege showing… Hrmph.
At any rate, after sleeping on it and looking again in the morning, I decided it could not be salvaged in a satisfactory manner. I’d have to lop off a good inch from the top, therefore making a whole bunch of un-square squares, etc. I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that I could not give something to my good friend that I wasn’t totally proud of and satisfied with.
And there’s no fricking way I’m picking out all of those seams.
So, it goes into a drawer until I decide to cannibalize it for scraps. And I went back to my local quilt shop and bought some more fabric (some of the same prints, plus some new) and will make an entirely different pattern. Don’t want to go into too much detail, since I don’t know if the friend in question reads this blog. But hopefully it’ll turn out a bit better this time.
Oh, and in the meantime I’m about three days behind on the 9-patch quilt-along. Damnit!
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I don’t know if you’ll get this because it’s been a few posts, but I know this pattern. I taught it as a beginner class twice until we decided it was NOT a good beginner class after all. Too much frustration. And I hope you didn’t actually buy the amounts they call for because you’d be mad after cutting two 3.5 inch strips from the required 1/2 yard of fabric. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. But I will say that your fabrics are beautiful and that you shouldn’t feel bad about it not working.
Cheryl S.’s last blog post..Birdie sling
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Hi ! I’m also doing the sewalong at old red barn and a bit of a beginner. Have made the exact same mistake ! what I then did, what putting the ruler across to just under the selvedges (i.e but the bambi’s head off…) and cut across to make it straight. Then cut the strip of the red, and re-attach. it does mean that the ninepatch is not square anymore and that the binding in size is slightly smaller than the rest, but hey, I decided that the wonkyness had a charm of it’s own and I added a tiny strip of different fabric to make up size, that I then also used somewhere else… And you know what ? due to these “deliberate” mistakes, it really looks old wonky homemade and gives it charm ! long live wonky !
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