Do you remember the block I was working in from The Farmer's Wife quilt book? The one that got me frustrated because I could not get the prices to fit. Well, here it is all done.
My problem was a few different things going one at the same time. For starters I will explain that this block and all of it's pieces only measures 6" finished. With a little block like the with a lot of small pieces every little detail makes a difference.
First off I cut the pieces 1/16" too big. Not much but when you compound that by many pieces it makes a huge difference. Secondly, I was sewing on a machine with a 1/4" seam allowance that was not a true 1/4". My seams were actually 1/16" smaller. Compound that by the first problem and you now have almost 1/8" larger on each piece. It wasn't working. To top it all off the placement of the pieces when sewing them was slightly off, so when pressed open the half square triangles were not lining up at the edges. Can you see now why I was so frustrated?
But, I was determined! I was not going to be defeated. I started from scratch. I took out the template that I thought I didn't need to use and started recutting all the pieces. The template did two things. One is it helped with making the pieces the correct size and two the template had the dog ears cut out to help with placement of the pieces when sewing them together. I moved over to my other machine where I used Bonnie Hunter's method of setting the seam allowance.
After all the changes complete, I tried again. Wouldn't you know it, the block went together with less effort. It's amazing what will happen with the right tools and proper preparations
I learnt a lesson with this block. I doesn't always pay to take shortcuts. In this case it actually more than doubled the time it would have taken had I taken the time in the first place.
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