Wheel of Patience
I am finally finished with my final project from Rachel's amazing Curves Camp! I don't think it should have been (because when I finally got it right, it really wasn't difficult at all) but this project was a major headache for me. Here is the finished project and then I'll give you the scoop on what went wrong:
1. First I cut the wedge pieces out from my precious mini bundle of Liberty fabric. About the same time Rachel mentioned she didn't think it held up well in quilts, especially when mixed with other weight fabrics, I realized I lost a quadrant. After hours of searching through my sewing room I gave up and decided to break into my fat quarter bundle of Woodlands by Khristian Howell (and added a few pezzy prints to make the 16). They are super soft, by the way, almost Mendocino - soft!
2.When it came time to make the background wedges from 20" squares of Kona white, I cut the arc 1/2"smaller than I was supposed to, so they would not fit with the wedges. I told myself, no big deal, Kona is cheap as far as fabrics go and I bought extra to use for snowballs, so I could cut the tiny squares from these wasted pieces and use some more yardage.
3. For my second set of background 20" squares I forgot to cut the selvage off first, so it was included in the 20" squares. Again, told myself I could very easily cut tiny sqaures from these nice, whole squares.
4. For my third set of background squares I must have cut the template off a bit, as all 4 pieces would not lie flat. I completely seam ripped each one 3 times and tried various ways of pinning, not pinning to get the curve right. Eventually the white pieces were so stretched and I was worried about the fabric not making it through another round of seam ripping.
5. I went back to those squares with the selvage still on and trimmed them to 19" squares. I very carefully cut my arcs and darn it if all four quadrants didn't come out nice and flat on the first try with no pins or seam ripper required!
6. Quilting went fine until I decided to go around the center of the white circle but had my stitch length set to about .7. Was having a heck of a time going around and couldn't figure out why until I completed the circle and took out the mess to see those teeny stitches. Wow, that was another battle with the seam ripper, but it had to be done, it was not even close to round!
7. Hoorah - quilted and bound. I didn't have enough of any fabric I used to make the binding, so I did a scrappy binding of all the fabrics and I sewed it on by hand, because I was not taking any more chances : )
You know, I actually might make another one!
Am I alone here, or has anyone else recently made something a bit more difficult than it had to be?
1. First I cut the wedge pieces out from my precious mini bundle of Liberty fabric. About the same time Rachel mentioned she didn't think it held up well in quilts, especially when mixed with other weight fabrics, I realized I lost a quadrant. After hours of searching through my sewing room I gave up and decided to break into my fat quarter bundle of Woodlands by Khristian Howell (and added a few pezzy prints to make the 16). They are super soft, by the way, almost Mendocino - soft!
2.When it came time to make the background wedges from 20" squares of Kona white, I cut the arc 1/2"smaller than I was supposed to, so they would not fit with the wedges. I told myself, no big deal, Kona is cheap as far as fabrics go and I bought extra to use for snowballs, so I could cut the tiny squares from these wasted pieces and use some more yardage.
3. For my second set of background 20" squares I forgot to cut the selvage off first, so it was included in the 20" squares. Again, told myself I could very easily cut tiny sqaures from these nice, whole squares.
4. For my third set of background squares I must have cut the template off a bit, as all 4 pieces would not lie flat. I completely seam ripped each one 3 times and tried various ways of pinning, not pinning to get the curve right. Eventually the white pieces were so stretched and I was worried about the fabric not making it through another round of seam ripping.
5. I went back to those squares with the selvage still on and trimmed them to 19" squares. I very carefully cut my arcs and darn it if all four quadrants didn't come out nice and flat on the first try with no pins or seam ripper required!
6. Quilting went fine until I decided to go around the center of the white circle but had my stitch length set to about .7. Was having a heck of a time going around and couldn't figure out why until I completed the circle and took out the mess to see those teeny stitches. Wow, that was another battle with the seam ripper, but it had to be done, it was not even close to round!
7. Hoorah - quilted and bound. I didn't have enough of any fabric I used to make the binding, so I did a scrappy binding of all the fabrics and I sewed it on by hand, because I was not taking any more chances : )
You know, I actually might make another one!
Am I alone here, or has anyone else recently made something a bit more difficult than it had to be?
It looks wonderful! You are definitely not alone... I made some easyish blocks on Sunday night with HSTs in each corner. I finished, squared it up, took a picture and realized one of the HSTs was on in the wrong direction. I ripped it out, re-sewed, and looking there! It was on wrong again! Arrrrgh! Made the next block and put another piece on in the wrong direction and realized right before I squared it up.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your challenge with this.... Makes me feel much less alone. Your quilt is gorgeous and I love the binding, too! :). Oh, and I mailed out your CMQG block today, too!
Wow, you are one patient person! Hats off to you managing to cut several times and do all that seam ripping. Your wheel looks great! Are you planning on any other projects from our Curves Class?
ReplyDeleteI just ordered this pattern and hope to be good enough to do this myself some day. I love it!!
ReplyDeleteOh so pretty!
ReplyDeleteIt looks super! Sorry you had such a tough go, especially cutting into your liberty!
ReplyDeletePS: I tend to make things harder often!
Mine ended up more difficult than it should have been, too, but not that difficult. I used my cutting mat to measure out the 20 inch squares. Only after cutting did I notice that the 0 is at the corner of the mat not at the beginning of the cutting area so my squares were 19 inches, too. Good thing I bought extra.
ReplyDelete