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Old 06-20-2011, 08:11 AM
  #52  
Jo Belmont
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Reno, Nevada
Posts: 794
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Originally Posted by bj
Originally Posted by Jackie54
Thanks everyone, my pattern is Joesph's Pinwheel by fons& porter. I know its not a hard pattern, but I make it hard.It is in this months issuse book from Fons& Porter. I think alot of it is, because I dont use their choice of material, so when it tells me to say like go with blue poka dot material cut 4 7/8 wide strip, from strip cut 2 4 7/8 squares. Cut squares in half diagonally to make 4 half square. Now am I makeing a mountain out of a nothing.If you have the issue of the book it is on page 62.

Thanks everyone for your help.
One thing I do if there are lots of fabrics and I'm not following their fabric/color scheme is make myself a cheat sheet. I put up a poster that has my fabrics I'm using that I number from one to whatever. Then beside mine, I put their fabric reference in ( ). If possible, I go thru the pattern and write my number over their reference (I've been known to use white-out :-D :-D liberally!)
Cheat sheets have been a lifesaver for me. But another thing I do if I have found a particularly challenging pattern:

I have a pad of large-size (11 x 17 or so) construction paper of various colors. I will often do a mock-up of the pattern in construction paper (different colors representing different fabrics) to make sure I got my head around it. (I use a rotary blade that's on its last legs which I save for cutting paper.)

Throwing away paper is not nearly so frustrating as tossing fabric, one try after another.

Hope this helps.
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