I told you yesterday about about Connecting Threads, the on-line quilting fabric store, and also that I'm participating in their Perfect Points Quilt-along. Although I have completed quilts with many points to match in the blocks, I really didn't know how to correctly and precisely form the points...I just sewed the right-sides of my pieces together (trying to nest my seams) and hoped for the best. Opening up the fabric was always a surprise - did the points get cut-off? Are the points floating near the seam? Are my lines and diagonals off-centre and not meeting? Sometimes 'yes' was the answer...OFTEN 'yes' was the answer, to these questions so I knew this quilt-along would be perfect for me.
The Quilt with Us site is full of great information. It is an on-line community of people trying to learn and improve and offers great 'classes', feedback, encouragement, and a place to chat and ask questions. I was able to print off the pattern for the sampler, lessons, cutting charts and alternative fabric choices...plus many pdfs of discussion topics and tips. It is all free to join.
Once I started the blocks for the Precision Points lesson one, I quickly discovered that it was pretty hard! Even armed with all that information it was a challenge for me. Flying Geese were the most difficult and although the pinning method taught, using a positioning pin for perfect alignment, worked many times, I still struggled to get some of my seams in the right place. I must have picked apart every seam several times and actually ended up throwing out my first batch and re-cutting my fabric (hope I have enough for future lessons!) and starting over. I tried every 1/4" foot I have for my Horizon and tried several methods of getting that 1/4" seam but each time was still a crap-shoot!
Here's what I've ended up with. They don't look too bad in the photos but I haven't ended up with the correct sized finished block yet! (Probably still w-a-a-y better than I could do on my own!)
It will be a miracle if these blocks all go together in a quilt at the end! Just like the Craftsy Block-of-the-Month, I will have to wait and see! I AM learning a lot and am attempting to practice the positioning pin technique. I would definitely recommend checking out this site if you'd like to improve your piecing! I am only part-way through lesson 2 so I have a lot of work to do to catch up. I'm trying not to rush through and am being as careful as I can.
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