The diamond quilt project is still managing to grab nearly all of my morning sewing attention this week.
I'm about 15 blocks shy of having all the blocks needed to assemble the quilt project that was shelved many years ago. To my knowledge, the pattern I bought years ago along with a pretty set of floral prints in a pre-cut strip roll isn't available any longer.
Just for fun, I thought I would sew a couple of blocks into vertical rows to see how well they go together.
From the looks of it, I appear to be on the right track, agreed?
The instructions don't go into a lot of detail when it comes to trimming the long and skinny rectangular blocks. It just says that it's important that the blocks are all the same size. . .
But it fails to suggest that whatever that consistent size might be, it's even more important to make sure the diamond points on the short ends are *centered.*
Of course that makes sense, and of course,I didn't think about that until about half-way through the trimming exercise.
Most of the blocks are pretty good. And the points line up in the middle of the short side of the block as they should. Dumb luck.
Unfortunately, after a couple of successful block seams in my row experiment, I found a block that was the right size, but wasn't trimmed AND centered.
I've already given in to the fact that some points will be compromised - this technique has a lot of built-in variables. I am not as concerned about the side points, in part because they're not as pointy and they don't have to intersect with points from the neighboring block.
But the pointier short ends really should line up. As I prepped the seam, I used several pins and attempted to match the center point first, then add more pins on each side of the seam.
Then I sewed the seam and took a peek.
Well, poo!
Indeed, this is the stuff that UFOs are made of. . .
. . . You make progress, then you slam on the brakes. And you question if this is really all that rewarding after all. The shiny new object beckons.
Indeed, I think it may be time for a break from this project. I see some reverse stitching in my future. And I see some vacation travel, just in the nick of time!
Au revoir!
See you in a couple weeks. . .
Happy Stitching!
Head Hummingbird
Hummingbird-Highway.com
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