well, I said I wanted to post at least once a week to keep myself going. I have been working sloooowly on grandbaby's princess quilt and have had a lot of trouble.
This has been very disconcerting bc I am a pretty reasonable seamstress. I couldn't understand why some parts turned out great, but 'squaring' up my blocks has been really difficult. I know what the problem is now: newbie's you might want to take note, bc I wish I had known to be careful of this before.
I designed this quilt. The centers of four of the blocks are pre-printed panel blocks. I finally realized today after having to trim blocks some more, cutting off some of my best work, that in the very beginning when pressing the centers and first borders around them...I USED STEAM AND STRETCH THEM CATTYWHOMPUS! Everybody is always talking about steam, but if you read the quilting magazines, the experts reccommend using it for fusible but press, (DO NOT IRON BACK AND FORTH) ...I repeat....press your block with a dry iron.
If you are really good and can use steam, I applaud you. If your starting out and want to learn precision instead of frustration, don't use steam unless you WANT to stretch your blocks to make them fit.
I probably should be very discouraged with this quilt and there was a time i would have compulsively just about made the whole thing over. i feel good about knowing that I can accept it the way it is and the next one will be better. I hope to get the last two blocks on tomorrow and then I can work on the striped border for them. It's technically my fault that i have had all this trouble, bc I must have stretched those panels and then couldn't get things squared no matter what i did, but knowing this, let's me know It's not that I can't quilt half way decent. I am looking forward to a new project though.
Got another five year old granddaughter and hers needs to be finished, so it will probably be next. quilt and learn, quilt and learn....