worst instructions ever
 

I went on a shop hop about 6 years ago. I saw one finishing kit I totally loved and got it. One of my friends loved the same finishing kit too. She had all kinds of trouble with the thing. The instructions are bad plus at least two of the fabrics were short in the kit. She had additional fabric mailed to her for both of us. I remember three of us getting together to help her put that quilt together and we still scratched our heads several times over the instructions. They're just two short pages and mostly a picture.

This'll teach me to wait 6 years to put a quilt kit together!! I was still short on a couple of the fabrics. For one I just dug thru my stash and found a better substitute and for the other I had a couple of yards of the same fabric in my stash. Hopefully the rest of it goes together like it should. But I'm not counting on it!!

Some patterns really assume you know a lot about quilting. Anymore I take the instructions out of the package and read them completely to see how complete the instructions are.

somewhat like the four patch posie pattern. in black and white and made no sense to my brain. I actually made one after listening or reading other quilters saying how to make it. then I sold the pattern or gave it away. all quilters should make sure their patterns are well written and easy to understand and has some color pics. Otherwise why sell them? to make people unhappy? good luck!!

I too have bought patterns which I swear must have a page or two missing of instructions or it's written with the wrong measurements. Good think when I first started quilting not trusting myself to always cut right I alway bought extra fabric such as if it said 1/4 of a yard I got 1/2 to be safe. Also not wanting to make a mistake I would use scraps to make a test block first, which I still do when I pick up a pattern and after reading it I get that gut feeling something is not right. I still to this day will buy a little bit more then what the pattern calls for of fabric since it may have a mistake of the amount. I also learn a long time ago that so often if the fabric amount was wrong when you need to go back to get the extra amount chances are the fabric was sold out and you are out of luck where you first got the fabric from, then on a hunt for it searching the internet. Once you finally find the fabric you need and may only need 1/4 of a yard or less but you only find it at a place where it's 1 yard min. so you end up with left over (sometimes not a bad thing) but you have shiping cost.

I have also learned the hard way to buy extra fabric. I made a rail fence quilt and was instructed to sew four strips, width of fabric, and I would be able to get five blocks out of it. Now this was an Eleanor Burns pattern. I found out the hard way that fabric can be anywhere from 40" to 45" in width and I was only able to get four blocks not five for each strip set. When I went back to get more fabric they were out of some of it. I was lucky to find one fabric with enough yardage to make a wide border to make up the difference.

I wonder how companies can get away with advertising 44 - 45" width when it's closer to 42" or less.

I'm going to try and get this quilt together today. Because of the way it's set there are lots of mitered corners though.

Not too long ago, my guild was asked to make scrappy blocks to be combined into a very special fund raiser quilt. I found this neat block pattern from a quilt book. I read the instructions and followed them carefully. You can imagine my chagrin when the block ended looking like a bowl instead of lying flat. I doublechecked the instructions and templates. That was when I discovered measurements of one template piece were actually off. I had to take apart the block and draft out a template with correct measurements. It worked, but I was wondering why the instructions were apparently not doublechecked or have someone do the projects first before publishing the book.

The Spiral Tablerunner pattern is another that has lousy hard to understand instructions.

Oh boy can I ever relate to this thread! I have had these problems before myself and you don't want to know the bad words I called the designer and kit assemblers .... LOL!

The smart thing to do is like everyone said, check those blocks first by making one up in stash fabric and check the fabric contents when you buy it. A lesson learned the hard way really sucks!

I hope you gals are able to get your nice projects together ok. It sounds like it is really cool if you like it so much. You have good taste scissor queen.

I'm beginning to think it wasn't such a bad thing I waited 6 years to do this quilt. The instructions say to cut 4 10 inch squares and cut them once on the diagonal. But to make the stripes go the right way and to make them fit they have to be cut twice on the diagonal. No wonder my friend had such trouble with this quilt!