All together now!

I put in the last curved seam this morning.  And, yes, even though I promised to shut up about it, I will be giving tips on assembly. 

In this post, I talked about how I assembled the individual block sections.  Assembling the rows works exactly the same way.  You're sewing a diamond to a melon, even though there is usually another diamond and another melon attached to the other ends.  But, it's all the same principle.  Sew one curved seam at a time.  I will be adding information to that post, because I didn't say that when sewing a melon to a diamond, and then adding a second melon, don't sew to the end.  Treat it like a Y seam and start a quarter inch from the leading edge and backstitch.  Then, end a quarter inch before the ending edge and backstitch.  You're going to need those seam allowances to be loose later.  I happened to have done this, but I didn't think to mention it in that post, I don't think. 

When you're sewing two rows together, you really are dealing with a Y seam.  You can see how that point needs to fit in with the other brown squares.  The easiest way to do that is still to sew one curved seam at a time. release some pins and move to the next curve.  I'm sure some people could do that in one long seam.  But, I didn't even try.  I just did one seam at a time and it worked great.  .  (I've used masking tape to number my blocks after laying them out and doing my best to make sure that I got fabric variety in the setting squares.)

You can see where I put the original seam in in the picture above.  But, now, I'm going to bring in another seam at the angle that the pin shows.  That's the Y part of the seam.  See how I left the end of the diamond point loose by starting the seam a quarter inch in?  I've got to fold that seam allowance back out of the way later, so I need it to be loose.

Because I left my seam allowances open, I'm going to be matching this open seam, a quarter inch from the edge, to a point that is created on the other piece. 

To create that point, I need to fold the seam allowance (from two pictures above) back over the arc so I can create a new seam line for the next arc.  Because the seam where the setting square joins is pressed open, I can fold back the green diamond and the beige arc without folding back the setting square.  That forms the new seam line that goes from the diamond to the setting square.  Think Y seams.  If you're not familiar with all this, study those.  Understanding them is the secret to getting the blocks together. 

 

I drop a pin in that to keep it from folding back on me.  Remember, I do not want to sew over that match point.  I want all the ends to be loose.  Then, I match exactly where I want the seams to go together and I pin that.  Remove the excess pins.  I pinned two complete rows together.  But, I sewed one curve at a time.  I did that because I have to do some unpinning and re-setting up when I transition from one setting square to the next. 

 

 

This doesn't show it very well, but if you look along the right edge, you'll see that the transition is smooth from the brown setting square at the top to the green diamond below.  Start sewing a quarter inch from the beginning and end a quarter inch before the end. 

 

When you get to the end, pull just the last pin.  Look at the horizontal seam above...the one closest to the bottom of the photo frame.  You can see that one isn't sewn yet.  But, I just finished the seam that runs along the right edge, ending right at the match point, which is a quarter inch from the edge of the brown fabric.  I pull the last pin and turn the work 45 degrees and fold all the seam allowances out of the way.  I do not want to sew over anything here except the new seam.  Drop a pin into the beginning of the new seam and I can sew that seam. 



 

 

I included this picture to show how the seam allowances all get pushed out of the way.  I fold them back so that when the needle approaches, I can make a stitch just at the match point, without sewing down any seam allowance. 

 

 

As I completed a row, I pulled all the pins.  As I was pulling pins, I'd find tiny mistakes and at that point, I would fix them.  They're only going to get harder to correct later.  As I removed the pins from a set of setting squares, I'd turn that section over and look at it and make sure the seams matched good enough before I continued to pull pins from the next seam allowance.  I didn't do a whole lot of re-sewing here, but there was some.  It's hard to get all this to match up perfect on a curve and having all those pins in the way doesn't help.  So, once the pins are out, I can repair small sections very quickly, mostly because I handled it all one curve at a time. 

 

 

Work is busier than I can even imagine.  My big grammar and punctuation project is in full swing now.  We are extending that from my documents to documents we use all across the country.  We've found that because we write these documents one section at a time, they don't have consistent word choice...think how hard it would be to read a document where one paragraph is written in the past tense, the next paragraph in the future tense, and then a paragraph in the present.  It makes it very confusing.  Someone called me cynical in our meeting yesterday.  And, I responded with a short speech about how this was going to improve processes for people at my job level all across the country.  There was no more talk of me being cynical.  I came across as more of a dreamer...if we build it, they will use it...

 

Ugh...it's so hard to be that upbeat.  It left me a little breathless.

 

Everybody have a great Wednesday!  The girl got hit with federal withholding on her last check.  She made less money on the check and didn't understand why.  It's because they withheld on her tips and she made great tips.  Poor thing.  I know that's a hard concept to grasp. 

 

Very soon we need to buy shoes to go with that fancy dress.  I do not quite know how we are going to fit that in. 

 

But, we will.  Families have gotten things done for generations.  When the going gets tough...the tough make a good, stiff drink.

 

Lane