I have been trying to sew together a Spool block as part of the Blockbase Sew Along over at the EQ blog 'Behind the mouse'. This Sew Along has been running for a while and has been a great experience in terms of seeing the colour arrangements other quilters use for the same block.
For this week the block to make is #1407a of Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, the Spool. This certainly is an exercise in sharpening your sewing skills. I have done inset seams before, but this is a while ago...obviously slightly overconfident, I pieced the first portion of the block together (there are 4 spools in the block)
Complete fail...this is the pressed version and as you can see it is completely out of shape and there is something wrong with the measurements. So, my winging it, just did not work...so much for confidence.
Today, I had another look and discovered that my measurements were out by at least 1/8" and I also had to do some reading up on inset seams to refresh my memory.
Second attempt turned out much better
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| 1/4 of the Spool block |
Have a great week.
Karin
Thanks for linking up Karin. I like this block, I would never have thought that the 1st was wrong...
ReplyDeleteThis is great...I love discovering new blogs. Always so much to see.
DeleteCute blocks and nice job with the pressing!
ReplyDeleteThanks Christa
DeleteI haven't done this kind of a block in decades. But a couple of suggestions from my hand piecing days. Don't press the seams until the block is done, and consider pressing them open instead of to one side.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason the block might be off is that you are pressing everything to the right. The seams ought to either be pressed to the outside of the block or the inside of the block. You can see that the block doesn't match on the front, and that is because of the pressing. I suggest you press in the direction the seam wants to fall.
Yes Stella, you are exactly right. I did another two after the post and remembered how I used to press this which is different to the above photo. It actually opens up on the intersection...you are right, it closely follows how you would press when hand piecing. Thanks...this did make me take a second look.
DeleteI think I'm on the verge of learning I'm not precise enough when I sew! I'm very impressed with your tenacity and to me, all of the blocks look great :) Found you via Stitch by Stitch's Anything Goes linky!
ReplyDeleteI am a bit of a perfectionist...but also learned over time that the quilt comes together so much easier if you paid attention to getting your blocks right. Thanks for visiting ...
ReplyDelete