Month Two Ruffled Roses

[Norma H.]

Pam, your quilt looks wonderful. Very nice border you have made

[Margo C.]

Thanks Rosemary! Better advice than I would have given!! ops:

[Pam D.]

Margo, thank you for your very kind offer but I used Rosemary's suggestion and even I could do it. They've obviously made it idiot proof just for me. :wink: Rosemary, thank you, it took about a minute for me to work out how to do it. I've saved that website to favourites.

[Pam D.]

Well this whole project has been giving me fits. I wont go into the drama of the tiny borders and the miters not being long enough, but really not happy with the lattuse squares and the stacking seam allowances. At this point I think Im going to take them all apart and re-press it. Its pretty obvoius the points dont match. But Im concerned about the color showing through the white background, is there a rule for this? I havent done alot of quilting and my first idea that this would be good enough for a show is out the window as its not. So will be a learning quilt but I want it as good as I can make it. The applique part was easy and turned out beautiful, the peicing not so much. Any ideas or comments about the whole seam matching issue would be appreciated. This is one of the better ones. I also didnt know the name of the crumbcatcher edge, went back and added one after seeing pictures of it by other people, liked it better than plain. Except they aren't all perfectly the same size. I guess I really dont know what Im doing! ops:

[Margo C.]

Kate, I think you are being too critical of your own work if you aren't pleased with that lattice block, but if you want to re-do it, you might try pressing the seam allowances open to distribute the bulk. If you aren't using starch before you cut and piece your blocks, you might try that. It really helps when dealing with bias edges, even when they have been paper pieced. Pinning each seam before sewing it might help lining up the lattice element.

If the darker fabrics shadow through the white fabric, you can trim any offending seam allowances that might be extending too far. I would lay the block on a piece of your batting of choice to see how much it shows.

You can do this!

[Margo C.]

Thanks Margo. I did press open where the instructions said to, and the centers arent as bad as the left and right 2 blocks. Those are stacked and most of them dont match. That bugs me more cause you can see it against the white so easily.
I think Im going to try that twisting that was written about. And I will try against the batting. Ill be happy to go on to the appliqued swags!

[Pam D.]

Kate, this quilt is a huge learning curve for me too, and I am sure for many others out there. I avoided doing a TQS BOM because I was to busy, it was too advanced etc. etc. every excuse you can imagine ops: Eventually I realised that I could learn so much from this, so took the plunge. Having watched nearly all the TQS shows and listening to all the advice out there, I have found that starching my fabric, accuracy in cutting, sewing an accurate quarter inch seam allowance and infinite patience are essential.

I come from a dressmaking background where if a seam allowance strays a fraction of an inch it's not the end of the world. In patchwork accuracy is essential.
I am way behind with my BOM but and that means that I can benefit from the advice of others on the forum from their mistakes. I watched and watched all of Margo's tutorials and find her advice and experience priceless. She has made this quilt up twice already so knows any snags there are out there waiting waiting for us to come along.

Almost every technique I am using is pretty new to me. I may have done a sample in a class ten years ago and not used it since. You are obviously comfortable with applique. I found that a major challenge and found a nightmare. I had put too many hours of work into it to redo it all and start from scratch again, but I had learnt how to do the next applique pieces better. I then put on a crumbcatcher and applied my setting triangles, the piece then didn't sit flat and square. I hadn't starched the fabric and the bias edged had stretched. I took them off, used new fabric, heavily starched as adivsed and they went on well. Then I discovered that I had omitted to put the crumbcatchers back in. They had looked looked so good, but I decided not to risk my luck again so left it as it is.

Like you I want to be pleased with what I have done. However don't be too hard on yourself. Step back and look at the work. I know that the imperfection show less when seen at a distance and when the quilting is done. When I view my lattice blocks on the design wall what I see is the coloured of the lattice against the cream background rather than imperfect seam matching hitting me in the eye. On joining the lattice block I found that pinning the seams accurately was the one of most important things to do.

I know many others will have encouragement and advice to share with you too. I hope that you enjoy working on the rest of your quilt and that you can be pleased with what you have achieved.

[Pam D.]

Thanks Pam, acutally your discussion of the process was helpful to me. I did cheat kinda, I took an amazing class from Sue Nickles and learned to do really nice fused raw edge applique. And I have a nice machine with the blanket stitch to do the edges. So that part is fun and easy cause I learned all the tricks first. And I dont like handwork that much having had hand surgery so a machine way is the best for me. But peicing is a challenge. Ive desided to take the lattice apart and re press the seam allowances. I get stuck sometimes in doing it the "right" way and if there isnt a real rule about how to press the seam allowances then, I'd rather do it such a way that it looks good and matched from the front. I do need to remember the starch trick, had forgotten to do any of that.
I guess this will be a big learning curve and thats ok, but with this big a project Ive spent a ton of $ on the fabrics, want it to turn out well in the end. Im also far behind as it took me 2 months to just pick my fabrics and deside how to progress. Design isnt my strong suit either! But Im loving it now, just want to be happy with each step before going on. Thanks for the advice!
Do you have a blog? I bet its pretty in England...
Kate

[Pam D.]

Kate, On the applique I tried the freezer paper method and Ricky's method but wasn't happy so opted for the fused method too.

After I had done each paperpiece of the lattice, ie having the diagonal stripe, I squared it up with a ruler to get that to as near to the exact size it should be trying to centre the point. Sometimes if the seam allowance hadn't been correct I would put them to one side and then adjust the seam allowance when stitching the 4 piec unit together. Also I tried to get the corner point to the corner of the ruler thus trying to ensure that each piece was as near to accurate for assembling each unit. I must admit to getting the idea from others, but by checking and adjusting the accuracy of each piece as I went along it meant that I didn't end up with too big a mess to sort out once the strips were assembled.

Each mistake I have made has helped me further down the line.

England has some pretty places but nothing to rival US state parks with their jaw dropping beauty.

No I don't have a blog, I am not very good at putting text of any kind together. I did look at your blog last night though and enjoyed reading it.

[Margo C.]

Great tips, Pam! Sue has said from the beginning that accurate measuring, cutting, sewing and pressing are the secrets to having projects like this come together easily.