I spent the day piecing an old project from the UFO parade. I never dreamed it would have taken me all day to put this quilt together. I had it in rows before the day started. I learned quite a few things during this quilt. I would like to share some of the mistakes I made along the way.
- If you spin the seams of 4 patches to get them to nest together perfectly, all the spins MUST go the same direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise). This was my first pitfall that caused me to put the quilt away. I had to take my sashing units apart and sew them differently so all the seams matched.
- Sewing the sashing strips to the top of the blocks only works when the size is increasing.
- If you do not do number 2 correctly, you can fix the error by sewing partial seams (which is not the most fun)
- Double check that the blocks are going the correct directions before you sew the rows together.
- Large quilts take a lot of time to sew the rows together.
I would like to give you a visual of the problem I had with the sashing. I had sewn the 4 patch sashing to the tops of all the rows (shown in the first picture). I thought I was good to go, so I attached all the setting triangles.
When I took a closer look, I noticed the problem. Since the quilt was set on point, as the rows decreased in size, the sashing strips didn't border the larger previous row. I had to remove the setting triangles and go to plan "B"
I Joined the rows and trimmed the over-sized sashing triangle. This left me with a partial seam to complete from the previous triangle.
It is all together, now I need to figure out what color border to add. I love the 4 patch sashing, but it was a lot of extra work.
Tomorrow I hope to work on some quilting so I can report some finishes in the new year.
Wow, How big is it?
ReplyDeleteIt looks great! Now you are due for smooth sailing right?
ReplyDeleteFor all the extra work, it is a stunning quilt. :)
ReplyDelete