Well, life has certainly been busy. Field trips at school, with 9 more days of the summer program. Biking for the PanMass Challenge. Hanging out with family and friends. It’s summertime, and the living is easy!
I did make a sewing field trip, however; I took the Red Line MBTA from near my home to the south shore to visit a fellow quilter and to see her operate her new long-arm quilter. I do not believe that I have met J. before, but our daughters have been friends since college, and we comment on each other’s blogs. Her blog is http://quiltify.com/. I suggest you read it!
We had fun, but both of us forgot to take photographs! She demonstrated for me her free-motion quilting and also how to use pantographs. I tried both and found myself pretty clumsy…..but it was my first time.
Anyhow, we had fun and although I am not going to buy a long-arm quilter, it was fascinating to me to see one in action. I just sure wish we had taken photographs.
On another note, I am having a problem with something. I am making letter pillows for wedding gifts this summer, and I admit it: I am using kits. I am doing this because I really want to work on my 1/4 inch seams. Often I sew seams and don’t check the size of them, and then when I am piecing my seams do not match. So I decided to use pre-cut fabrics, to make sure the problem was not in my cutting (I am impatient with cutting, I admit). So this is what I started with:
These are precut and ordered from Hearthside Quilts.
So they are pretty much the same size and shape.
And then I sew AND measure each 1/4 inch seam:
measured 1/4 inch seams
So I am being very careful and measuring almost every seam.
But then this happens:
What happened?
As you can see, the seams do not match. It could be that they muslin piece is too short, but I have other mistakes as well.
There are two errors there…and you can see my problem.
This is driving me crazy. The squares on the right side of this photo are mismatched also….and I have been VERY VERY careful…..
What is gong on here? Any ideas?
We were too chatty to remember the camera. Anyway, regarding your seams, b
efore I sew the seam, I match up any seams that should match up. I pin them. Sometimes one has to stretch one of the pieces to get them to match, but it helps a lot in lining them up correctly…at least that is my technique. Otherwise, mine don’t match either. I think the feed dogs grabbing the bottom piece of cloth could be the issue rather than your cutting.
Hmmm….I am not sure what you mean by matching up seams before you sew them….can you explain that?