by Cathy
So, flush from the completion of a longstanding UFO, I decided to take Nancy’s advice and work on something for me — in this case, an even more longstanding UFO, the famous Quiltmaker Mystery Quilt. (Which Ann finished so long ago that it now hangs on the wall in her cottage. Overachiever.)
When last we checked, my version of the Mystery Quilt stood here.
Then, a baby intervened, which gave me a convenient mechanism for tracking how long it had been since I worked on the project. Five and a half years later, I finally dug it out of the Crafty Closet to see what state I’d left it in, and discovered that it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.
I’ve spent the last two weeks in a flurry of quilting (aided by a young man’s desire to build with Legos in my study, which is handy), and I’ve been able to complete the Log Cabin-izing of the four smaller blocks, as shown below (the white envelope in the middle is so that I could do some color correction in Photoshop);
They’re beautiful, don’t you think? I’m so proud of myself for getting so much done in such a short period of time!
They’re also a full quarter-inch too small in both dimensions.
Argh! ArgharghargharghARGH.
I don’t have enough fabric to make the outer strips a quarter-inch larger, and that would look pretty weird anyway. So, I’m going to take each one apart and re-sew them with ever-so-slightly-smaller seam allowances, and hope I can do better. Tune in again in, well, a few weeks or a month or two. 🙁
Ahhhh, yes. The seam ripper. As Herbert Hoover said, ” A chicken in every pot and a seam ripper in every room.” That’s what I remember.
How about adding a narrow border to each of the blocks? And if Andrew says , “The rules must be obeyed,” tell him it is not required of Crackpots.
I’m with Marty on adding a narrow border. If you take a look at my version of the quilt (which I don’t like as much as yours), You will see that the log cabin-y blocks “float” on a large background area. Using that fabric or one blends with it should work fine.
Ah, too late for a narrow border! (Which I also think would have looked weird.) I’ve already disassembled and reassembled one of the blocks, successfully! And, doing this has allowed me to change the design just slightly and do what Ann did, and use the very-dark fabric for the outermost dark strips on the log cabin blocks, to make them “float” like she did — which is an effect I like a lot, and was disappointed to find that I hadn’t done. So now I can do that, which is cool.