Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Measure Twice and Cut once

"Measure Twice, Cut Once"

"Haste Makes Waste"

Just to take a little break from the sewing machine, I decided to cut the border pieces for my nines and vines. I love making borders from lengths of fabric that I don't seam. So that means cutting borders from a long length of fabric. Yesterday afternoon, I roughly measured, straightened, folded, ironed, fluffed... then did my final smooth out before laying ruler and rotary cutter. I cut the first 2 strips, no problem, cut the third strip no problem, and was about to cut the 4th strip, and I couldn't figure out why I would have so much of a margin left over.. well over an inch, when it was supposed to be 1/2 an inch or less.

Yep you guessed. One of my 8.5" wide borders is actually only 7.5 inches. Uggg..... It might seem like such a small deal, but this border has flowery stars appliqued on it and if I cut the other border side down to match , it would make the quilt 2" smaller in width. The St. Dunstan's ladies really want to make sure the width is a full queen size. (ticket buyers are always wanting a full queen size) Darn, Darn, Darn..... Oh, well, off to Fabricville for yet a 4th day in a row to get matching background fabric.

I'll trim the other 3 border background down an inch and use these 4 border pieces in my next project. I have some left over small 9 patches as well, so I guess I'll get a Greco Pizza Box and start another Nines and Vines project box - for me. I really do like this pattern. So, the moral of this story is.. Haste doesn't make waste.... Haste makes a whole new project!!

Do you see the cute little button tag on my scissors. These tags are from the Fons and Porter notions line and they come three in a package. You put them on your sewing notions that you take to workshops and you can easily tell which scissors are yours. In my case, I like to have the tag on these scissors because they constantly are being covered up with fabric pieces and the tag gives them extra visibility. My daughter Michele gave me 2 packages of these tags for Christmas. I really like them.

2 comments:

Donna's chitchat said...

when the world gives you lemons.. you make lemonade.. or should I say..you make another quilt. I am afraid that if I did that, I would trim an inch off the other 3 and then claim stupid... oh, geesh, I don't think its 2 inches narrowerer than a queen.. is it? oh sorry !!

Mary Johnson said...

How frustrating. If it was my project I'd cut it down but as you say, when you have guidelines you need to follow mid quilt changes aren't really possible. I'm looking forward to seeing this one finished. I don't care much for doing machine applique myself but I do like the looks of it.