Observations for the Day (Block 7 OMG I can’t believe it actually came together edition):
– I want to take a minute to thank everyone who commented on or reacted to my video yesterday. I appreciate your words of encouragement and prayers more than you can possibly know.
– Did we just cut a gazillion tiny squares for this block?
– I’m not diggin’ the baby poop green in the middle but it’s staying!
– I know some folks complain about Gina’s generous cutting instructions, but I appreciate it. Since I can neither cut nor sew straight, it was great to be able to square the HST’s to 2 ½”. I grabbed my Tucker Trimmer (more money spent because this group), popped that sucker on my freshly starched, pressed and visibly cocky wobbled square wannabe, lined the seam up on the diagonal line and cut away. I produced the most beautiful HST’s in the history of HST’s! I would have done the happy dance but I don’t have my energy back yet so I just mentally patted myself on the back.
– Then I moved on to the geese. For the first colorway, I was still in HST mode. I sewed a ¼ away from my chalked line like for the HST’s instead of on the line. Since we’ve made about 2000 flying geese for this challenge, you’d think I’d have a clue by now. It only went downhill from there.
– Does anyone really ever get perfect rectangles after they assemble their geese? I actually get shapes as yet unknown to geometry. If I could do math, I would figure out a formula for these things I produce and get a theorem named after me.
– Magic happens in my sewing room. My bottom rectangle (yes, it IS a rectangle before I start sewing) shrinks. But here’s where the magic comes in – it only shrinks on the sides and it’s not the entire side. It’s a little on the upper or lower side corner. AND it varies top or bottom, left to right from block to block. Maybe “magic” is too nice of a word. How about “cursed”?
– Novice pro-tip – when lining up the pieces that comprise the corner blocks, make sure you don’t twist the unit somehow as you move it from where you line it up to under your needle. It won’t look the same as the picture when done. After ripping and realigning, be careful not to twist the unit the other way. Doing this will result in needle holes decorating three sides of your nice, crisp fabric.
– Thread, thread, everywhere…
– When doing the final assembly, I achieved a feat as yet unknown to me – perfect piecing. All seams matched. All points were perfect. There were no puckers to be seen. I was proud and beaming. Then it slowly dawned on me that I had sewn the two end pieces together by accident. I almost cried as I reached for Jack. It was not because I had made a mistake (I do that all the time and am used to it). No, it was because I had to destroy perfection. It may never come again.
– The final result – mismatched and puckered as per usual.
– They say that ignorance is bliss. I guess that’s true as I’m not bright enough to realize that I can’t actually do these hard blocks. So, I bumble along and every week my stars come together. Amy’s quilt is looking damn fine and my blue blocks for the block exchange don’t look too bad either. This obliviousness has me picking block patterns because they look cool and not based on degree of difficulty. I’m having a ball and wouldn’t have it any other way!
