I'm not all that far into making my latest quilt and already I have the frustration that I get with every single quilt I make. It's a bear claw quilt (and I'm so frustrated I'm saying grrrrrrrr over and over). No matter how slow I go, how careful I am when cutting, how much I measure and remeasure at every step, how much I over-cut, etc. nothing ever comes out square as it should. I can take a pile of squares, 1.5" x 1.5", sew them together 2 at a time. If I've done my math right I should end up with a pile of rectangles that measure 1.5" x 2.5". But no, every single one will be off by a few threads to a sixteenth or even an eighth of an inch or more off. And the more parts of the square I put together the worse things will be.
In this latest quilt, I just finished making the 96 individual claws (which should be 3.5" squares). Looking at all of them I would say that pretty close to 100% of them need to be redone
. I'm only pulling the absolute worst to redo and it's a full 25% of them. And of course every time I pull the seams apart a couple threads are lost at the cutting line which creates more problems especially if I have to redo 2 or 3 or 4 times.
Every time I make a quilt I say this one will be better, I will be careful, I will watch every step, but no matter what I can't cut or sew a straight line. I've made about 30 quilts so I'm not totally new to quilting. It seems I'm no better at this now than when I first started. Between the extra time it will take to undo the seams of the ones I am redoing and then put them back together and then still have them be off, and then putting the 4 claws together with sashing to make a larger square, I'm losing interest fast knowing that things will become even more wonky as I go along despite giving it my best try.
Does anyone else have this problem?