Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Made to Measure....

I wanted to post one of those fancy pants mosaics featuring all the things I'd worked on this year. Surprisingly, there was quite a bit of sewing even if my blog posts have been rather thin on the ground. But alas, I haven't kept up with my flickr posting and this has made the mosaic difficult to capture. So I'll leave you with my latest project, Made to Measure, a medallion quilt designed my Sarah Fielke and featured in her latest book, Hand Quilted With Love.

I've opted to follow Sarah's colour scheme as I'm not that brave selecting my own. Mind you, seeing as it's the quilt featured on the cover and the one I fell in love with, why not follow the prescribed colours?
I've two more borders to go and I'm really enjoying the process....even if it does mean trimming down lots (did I say lots, I meant LOTS) of half square triangles. But that's my own doing, as I've chosen to make them over sized and trim them down for accuracy.
My piecing is obviously also a little out as the specified measurements are about 1/2" inch smaller than where I'm at. So I'm currently cutting a little longer and so far, that's working out. This however is a far cry from my first round of piecing for the centre star. I religiously followed the pattern for the centre star I couldn't believe how tight the placement was and how nothing aligned. To say I cried was an understatement. I had after all, cut into some wonderful fabric that I'd just bought back from Paris and hardly able to whip around the corner to buy some more!
So after a sleepless night, made worse by jetlag, trying to re-invent some measurements to make it work, I decided I'd google 'problems with Made to Measure measurements'. Guess what? An errata page! I get that mistakes are made, afterall I've spent a lifetime in advertising and communications and I know that when it comes to pressing that 'publish' button, there's a lot of stress on the publisher side. But....who would have thought it? Not me!
So the next night I unpicked what I'd done, re-cut the middle and set off again. So far, so good.
Here's hoping 2014 is filled with less errata for everyone and more plain sailing into the seas of fabric that we love!