Marianne's Quilt - Part 2

Welcome to the second installment of  making Marianne's quilt.

I wanted to mention, that I am linking this post to the Pink Saturday

blog Party over at Beverly's How Sweet the Sound

I have been taking part in this fun blog party for several months now.

I have re-routed my post from my Decorating My Tin Shack blog over here

so I can share this pink quilt with everyone. 

Here is the finished block (read part 1 for how I got to this point)

Pretty isn't it!

But there are some problems that will require me to take the block apart

first, it never pays to put the cart before the horse, 

things just do not work out well when you do.

I know the block looks fine, until you begin to look real close.

things are shifted this way and that, not lining up right,

go ahead look close, click on the picture to make it bigger

yep, I got the cart before the horse.

I did not trim my pieces up

I was in such a hurry to see how it would look sewn together.

I do have a tendency  to be a little impatient, 

especially with such pretty fabrics.

 I took, the top and bottom row off and took apart the blocks and trimed them up

and put them back together, being very careful to line things up.

I know it may be harder to see in this picture, but trust me it is alot better.

Why go to all the trouble, because I want to do the best job possible.

Now that I have the mechanics of the block down, and 

I have ironed out the kinks, lets get to the 

the other 14 blocks that will

make up this quilt.

 Cutting begins and sewing begins. 

upper left -center square

triangles for the corners

strips for the middle blocks and 

some of the middle blocks sewn.

So we have 14 blocks, with 4 corner blocks and 4 side blocks,

that is 56 of each to make the 14 remaining large blocks

and to make the 56 small corner blocks I will need 

224 triangles, half in pink and half in fuchsia. 

Today we are going to work on the 56 side blocks

so I cut 9 strips of the aqua and 9 strips of the dark blue fabric

each 1 1/2 inches wide by the width of the fabric (44")

but as always, getting my cart before the horse.  When I cut the 9 strips of pink fabric

which is 5 1/4 inches wide, I cut them to length of 6 1/2 inches.

Why is this not right?

Well, it is ok to do it this way but if one wants to strip piece, one should have left the

strip 44" long. 

Then I could have sewn the aqua strip on one side and the blue strip on the other side of the pink strip

and

THEN cut them to the 6 1/2 inch length, but no not me!

So instead here is how I did it.

I sewed the cut block to the strip of 1 1/2 aqua (I already did the blue but forgot to

take any pictures).  You will note the pile of completed pieces behind the sewing machine,

I did those while I waited for my camera battery to charge.  LOL.

This picture shows you the pieces joined and in the process of pressing.

Press the seams toward the pink.

Some pressing tips.....first do not iron (pressing down hard and sliding iron across fabric)

ironing can stretch you fabric and we don't want to do that, so press please

There is a 'school of thought' that one should press the seam before 

opening it up to press, this is said to set the stitches into the fabric.

Another note:  In quilting we do no open the seams like you would in garment construction

we press them to one side together.

Before pressing.

After pressing.  

I can see a difference, but I do not know if the reason behind it

is important.  I do it because I was taught that way and I feel like I am

skipping a step if I don't do it.  You decide, better yet, tell me if you press first or not.

So now because I got the cart before the horse I get to cut these apart for the third time 

when I could have done it only once.  Sigh.

Cutting these apart is pretty straight forward except that I have to make two cuts

do you see how much more work I made for myself?

I will begin working on the corner blocks next (once I finish cutting the side blocks apart)

lets see if I can keep the cart and the horse in the right order.

Until next time...........

Please go over and visit with Beverly and the other Pink posters at 

How Sweet the Sound

and 

head on over to Rossie's for more Process Posts.

May God bless you richly.