One of Those Days

Did you ever have one of those days that none of your seams seemed to be right, and therefore, all of your blocks were off?!

I think we all have days like this and no matter how long I’ve been quilting, I am no exception. I have been working on a quilt to be used as a class sample and I just can’t get it right. It must be something in the cosmic universe or just my plain stupidity. It makes me frustrated and feel like an amateur.

Here are the things that I should have done, which I didn’t do because I thought it would save me time:

I am piecing squares on a rectangle to make flying geese pieces. I should have drawn the diagonal line on the square, which would have made the stitching line absolutely accurate. I do know better.
I should have used the sewing machine that I have which has a 1/4″ foot that has a guide on the right-hand side of the foot, ensuring that all of my seams would be the exact same size — instead of using the sewing machine that was already set up in my sewing cabinet.

My blocks came out in slightly different sizes with uneven edges – they are very pieced. Some of the points aren’t pointy and they don’t exactly match each other across the sashing. Major frustration!
Each block came out at least 1/4 smaller than the 9 1/2″ they were supposed to measure. When putting the blocks together, each unit was a 1/2″ smaller than the recommended measurement, so I had to measure each unit before cutting the sashing and borders.

I can only hope that what I promise students, “the problems will get quilted out and you’ll never be able to see them” will be true with this quilt!

My point with this blog is that even if you have been quilting for years, you can still make mistakes if you don’t follow the rules. Sometimes I get driven by a time crunch, or just plain old thinking that I know how to do it and that it will come out ok. I have been dealt my come-upence.

The upside to this tragedy is that I will know exactly how to guide my students to make this quilt the right way.

I can hardly wait to have this quilt finished so I can move on to the next project on my list. I can assure you that I will not make this mistake with the next one, or the next – but because we are all human, I will probably forget in the future and repeat my mistake.

Ah, such is life. This quilt doesn’t just have a humility block – it’s a quilt of humility blocks! I think I just discovered its’ name.

I hope YOUR quilting day is happy. ; )