Wednesday, September 7, 2011

More haste revisited - Murphy's Law

Hi everyone!

It's WIP Wednesday again, and I have a finish to report!!!

Well, the bottom line is that I finished the mermaid quilt (now called Fishy Tales) on time, and it now lives with its new owner.

Along the way, though, there were a number of problems:

I decided to piece the batting out of 4 long pieces left over. So I zig-zagged the seams so they butted together, and I thought it would be fine. Don't do it! Maybe for a crib quilt, but not for a large project. While trying to smooth it over the backing there were numerous folds that wouldn't straighten and I had to cut into each fold and lay it flat over itself, and then trim the extra off. Lots more work.

In my hurry I didn't leave enough extra batting and backing at the quilt top end, and since I was using spray adhesive I was stuck with it. Joke, ha, ha! I wound up having to add batting, and then piece some backing to lengthen that too.

When I was ready to trim all the edges straight for the binding, I cut into a little fold on the top and cut a hole right through the border on one side. I nearly cried!  Luckily it wasn't large. So I had to patch it top and bottom. Well, it's called patchwork, right?  See the little patch?



I did the quilting in a hurry, an all over clamshell marked with chalk. In my hurry I didn't check the back as often as usual, and there are a few places where the bottom tension was too loose. It would have been such an easy fix! The worst bits I ripped out and did again. The other few places are OK, but I'll always look at them, sigh!


                             If you look closely at the blue clamshells you can see it.



Here's the quilt back - pieced, because I wanted to use the panel instead of being satisfied with a single fabric. I even had the backing fabric ready!

                      I did the binding while visiting, and here is the finished quilt, with Miss E.



                                                And Flower Fairyland with Miss K.


So success, but at a price on my nerves!  Now back to a more reasonable (for me) pace!

                                       Check out all the great WIPs over at Freshly Pieced.
WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced


                                                                         Thanks Lee!



Until next time,

Sue