Oops~

 

This week I managed to finish the strips on my quilt… I also reached a major set back. 😦

Once I finished my 5 rows of strips I though I would just have to put 5 more strips the other direction and then I would be on to the finishing steps to the quilt, such as adding backing and batting and then sandwiching them all together. Sadly, this was not the case because I made a MAJOR mistake.

 

So, I really did not think through what I was doing before I began sashing. I thought that once I was done all the horizontal rows, I would just add strips vertically to finish it off. I forgot that in order to hide the seams you have to sew the fabric together inside out and then iron it to flatten. Once I had the horizontal strips added, I went to take my next step.

The black patches are the couch showing through where white should have actually existed.

That is when my brain started to express its confusion because I knew how to properly sew my pieces together, but I did not understand why I could not do it now.

I literally stared at my quilt for a half hour before I realized what I had done wrong. What I should’ve done was sewed on my in between white patches onto my squares BEFORE I sewed my squares to my strips and attached them all.

 

Once I realized my mistake I had a minor meltdown. This meltdown included throwing the “ruined” quilt to the floor and then dramatically laying next to it. I then stormed around the house for a few minutes before vainly attempting to sew on the little squares. I knew this would not work because once one side has been sewed on, there is no way to properly attach the other 3 sides to one another.

I spent the rest of the day pouting about my terrible mistake and picking out ideas for my new quilt (which would definitely not include a sashing pattern). The next day I decided that perhaps I should not be a quitter and try to learn another important quilting skill called seam ripping. I found a YouTube video that described how to properly dismantle my entire project and then I set to work. The nice thing about seam ripping is that you can do it basically anyway. On the bright side I have gotten through a lot of episodes of Scandal while I tear my hard work apart. Once I have the entire thing taken apart I will sew on patches to either side of each square, and then I will attach them back to the strips.

 

This setback may mean that my trial quilt may be the only quilt I accomplish before the semester is over, but I am now determined to sew another quilt after I finish this one.

 

 

Here is how my square should’ve looked after placing the fabric face down (see below).