That pesky quarter inch

I almost started this with a dirty joke about why men make such good map makers.  If you know it, feel free to smile.

Anyway, I got the center of the mini quilt together this weekend.  I started putting it together on Friday night and suddenly things started to come apart.

When I’d made the sashing, my seam allowance was off.  By a lot.  And, to correct it, I trimmed the strips down without regard to how wide the individual sections should be.

Now, that would have worked fine if I’d employed it throughout, but half way through making the little corner pieces, I corrected it.  So, nothing was matching up and all the sashing and those eight corners that make the sashing turn were all tossed and I made them again.  Grrrr. 

The mistake was that when I used my seam guage to set my seam allowance to the perfect quarter inch, I turned it the wrong way and from that side, it’s not a quarter inch to the edge.  Maybe 3/16.  And, that extra sixteenth of an inch, spread across two or three seams was enough to make it way off.  So, it’s not just “follow the instructions” for this quilt, it’s be very detailed about how you follow them.

But, it came together and there were two of these.

See how the top triangle has the right point cut off?  Well, that couldn’t be, so I took little bits of stitching out and fixed it and put them back in again.

I guess they were right at bee; once an overachiever, always an overachiever.  Rob is suggesting I enter this in the show this year.

Anyway, all that done and there were the 152 hst blocks to make.  Holy tiny persnickety work, Batman!  They finish at 1/2”.

I have all four sections pieced…and all four are different lengths.  So, now there’s that to correct and get them all to the right size. 

Or, I could leave that border out.

But, we all know I won’t.

Everybody have a great Monday.  We are celebrating the day of Rob’s birth today.  We had a whole birthday weekend where he got to pick the places we ate and what we did.  We were all tired on Saturday, after the band on Friday night.  It was a Beatles cover band, so lots of singing and dancing and excitement.

Happy Birthday, Dearest.  Thanks for hanging in with me and being my best friend. 

Lane