The 9patch from .... (a hot place where they don't play hockey)

It's supposed to be simple!  Take a nine patch, sash it with muslin, attach it to another sashed nine patch and... you get the picture.  I've made far more intricate and complicated quilt blocks and tops with no trouble at all.  My sunflower quilt for example, each block had more than 100 pieces of fabric.  It went together without a single hitch.  What's the problem?

There!  That's the problem.  I finished sewing on the next row of blocks and in ironing and flipping the row, discovered that two blocks containing the same fabrics are side by side.  Arrrggghhhhh!  Now I know that random does not necessarily mean of equal distance from each other, but my only rule has been not to have two 9 patches containing the same fabric next to each other.  I spent quite a bit of time making sure of that with my strips.  But when I unsewed the strips, I must have switched some blocks around somewhere.  You have no idea how traumatic this discovery was.  It's as if the quilt top doesn't want to be made.  Then I noticed these two.

Now granted, they aren't exactly the same block.  After much muttering and considering of options, I decided not to worry about it.  That's right!  I'm going to leave it just the way it is.  This is a huge step for a perfectionist like me.  But in considering all the options I decided I could live with it just the way it is.  If I was intending to give this to someone, or enter it in a festival, I'd be busy ripping out that entire strip of blocks and saying some very rude words while I did so.  But, it's for me and it's scrappy and (let's face it) I've just about had it with this project.  It's certainly not an award winner and it has some strange fabric in it, like the axe-murderer block.  Take a look at the headless chickens and the blood red blocks.  Now if I'm not going to worry about this block, surely having two same fabric blocks next to each other should be no worry at all.

Another problem?  I've run out of leader and ender project.  The box by the sewing machine is now empty.

I finished sewing strip sets of the 1.5" x 6" strips that were in the box with the 9 patches.  Eeewww! There are some really hideous fabrics in here.  I'll be glad to see the last of these.

I ended up with 24 strips (5" x 18") and a about 12 (3" x 12").  I'm still thinking of using them in the String-X or Diamond Strings patterns at Quiltville but I might want them for borders on the 9 patch or the Ohio Star (both made with many of these fabrics).  And I certainly don't want to stop wrestling with the 9patch quilt top to start making blocks with the strip sets.  That would be the chicken's way out... or the headless chicken's way out.

I have to have a leader and ender project.  If I don't, the threads get all tangled and create ugly stump work on the back of what I'm sewing.

So I opened that box full of two-sies and started feeding them through my machine to make four-patches.  I originally blogged about them here.

Which means that overflowing box of four patches and sixteen patches is going to hit critical mass and explode soon.

Am I the only one who has these problems?  Thank goodness tomorrow is Crumb-Along Tuesday and I can work on something other than the possessed 9 patch.

 

Necessary Work and Quilt Gremlins

Housework is a necessary evil - and something I could easily put off, if I didn't share my apartment with a cat and his litter box.  In simple terms, what it really comes down to is a choice over vaccuuming the abode or brushing cat hair off my fabric.  I don't know how I can suck up enough hair to make another cat (every week) and yet my feline room mate still manages to maintain a full body suit of glossy black hair.  It's a mystery!  The accumulation became noticeable when I was adding the solid black borders to my crumb quilt.  Eeeewwww!  That's when the quilt gremlins hit - when I was distracted by the cat hair - I sewed a border on the wrong side.

Lucky for me I was sewing on solid black borders and the wrong and right sides are interchangeable, so I just undid the join and sewed it on the reverse.  There!  Done!  Take that Quilt Gremlins!  I would have hated to have to unsew the entire border.  I eventually did vaccuum.  In fact I spent an hour on necessary housework, even dusting and washing floors.  Once I give in to the task, I am thorough.

I trimmed double my daily quota of those half square triangles.  The trimmed box is filling up quite nicely, even if the box of untrimmed ones doesn't seem noticeably reduced.  By my reckoning, I may be 25% done.

And then I went digging in the "fling-it" bag in the hall coat closet (non-quilting fabrics and old bed sheets I was going to throw out, give to a friend for drop cloths, or donate).  I wanted a very thin cotton flat sheet I knew was in there for cutting up - for string block foundations.  I cut them out at 8.5" square and after slicing up the entire queen-size sheet, I have a stack of squares almost two inches high.

Now I must confess that, normally, a distracted procrastinator like me would have cut out one strip of blocks and started the new string project (just folded up the remainder of the sheet for future cutting). But it occurred to me when I was organizing my stash and identifying my UFOs that it was just this sort of procrastination that results in so many stalled and unfinished projects.  That's why I'm so pleased with this stack of foundation squares.  Now I get to play in the fabric stash for a unifying central stripe - orange or red?  yellow maybe?  I'll be ready to start making my first string blocks on Crumb Along Tuesday (if I can wait that long).  There are surely enough foundation squares here for a couple of string quilts.

While I was digging around in the "fling-it" bag, I pulled out these three items for reconsideration.  The pink and white solids are 100% cotton and it seems wasteful to get rid of them.  Sure solids are boring, but seen in the right light (say as the calming neutral in a scrappy quilt) they might work.  Right?  Yuck, that pink is really really pink!   The tea-dye coloured fabric is another flat sheet (a 50-50 poly cotton) and the frugal unemployed part of me can't help asking why can't I use it for a backing? 

Today was obviously a day for necessary work.  I put a much needed new ironing board cover on my board, put in the screws that hold firm the basket glides in my stash cupboard, and afixed the hinges to the cupboard door.  (No wonder handy men have such well developed muscles!)

I finished unsewing those nine patches...

...then started putting them back together the way I knew I should have in the first place, which is going to ensure the 9patches line up beautifully for quilting.  Notice the black shape under the ironing board?  Now you know why I was picking up cat hair on my quilt borders.  Lucas has a tendency to follow me around and get involved in anything and everything I am doing (except when I turn on the vaccuum cleaner).

And I picked up a couple of those plastic table cloths with the cotton backs to use as design walls.  I acutally stood there in the store agonizing over the colours I wanted to buy, before I remembered that the plastic coloured side would be against the wall and not seen anyway. 

And, there's my nightly stack of magazines to go through.  Tomorrow, I'm going to spend the day in guilt-less sewing.

Agonizing over the 9-patch Mess

Before I could proceed with cutting the long sashings I found myself discussing the whole sorry mess with a pal - who pointed out that it would take relatively little time with a seam ripper to go back a step or two.  I would only have to unsew 70 short seams... not 130.  And wouldn't I feel better about the quilt top if I did?

Aaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!

So now I'm in a quandry, see-sawing between my perfectionist tendancies and my dislike for seam ripping.  While I make up my mind, I've moved on to cutting and sewing on the borders of my crumb quilt.

And making the binding.  And pulling the fabrics to make the backing.

When you know better but do it anyway.....(sob!)

It's that ol' getting into that boy's car at the teen dance cuz he was cute thing all over again!  You know when you start out to do something not quite right that it's only going to end badly... and you think to yourself why? or why didn't I listen to that inner voice?!

I mean, well - sure it's a cute quilt, and sashing between blocks isn't so bad - but long sashing strips between rows (or columns).... Really!?

You see?  The problem is not with the quilt design or instructions.  Oh no!  The problem is with me.  I made these blocks over time and on different sewing machines (i.e. different seam allowances).  They aren't exactly the same size.  Some are a sixteenth or almost an eighth of an inch smaller (or bigger as the case may be).  Not necessarily a big problem really, just a smidge here and there that you can easily stretch to fit as you sew a block together.  But if the Quilting Gremlins have their way, and they did, you might just put all the smaller ones in the same row....  You know where I'm headed with all this hand wringing and whining don't you?

Ahuh! Some of the columns are a tad shorter, and by a tad I mean more than a half inch. I'm going to have to have to pin the sashing strip to each end and stretch it out as I sew, which also means my blocks aren't going to be perfectly straight as they go across the quilt... not that I expect anyone to lay a ruler across the quilt to check.  Sigh!  But I still like the quilt.  I think it's very sweet.  And after I finish wrestling with the strips and muttering under my breath, I'll like it even more.

You know what I should have done?  What that little quilting voice in my head told me I should do?   Sash two sides of each block, then join them into rows.  Then I would have only have one short edge and one long edge to add a muslin border to... and I wouldn't be in this predicament.

But it's not all bad.  I need sashing strips three inches longer than two yards, and decided to cut them from the length of muslin I had left... rather than across the width and joining strips.  Would you believe it?  The muslin piece I have left is three inches longer than I need!  Had it been too short, I would have joined cross cut strips.  At least this part worked out.  More luck than good management, I assure you.

I wonder what ever happened to that boy at the teen dance... whether he ever got around to fixing the passenger door handle... he's probably balding by now.