Counting Counts

Welcome to the first day of fall!

 

Don't ask me how I managed to do it, but somehow I miscounted the number of stars I made for my William Morris quilt. I was blazing through the construction of this quilt top when I realized I was short by about 6 blocks.

I have the quilt laid out on the guest bed. I've been working my way from the foot of the bed to the top of the bed, and row by row, I am rearranging blocks and pinning rows and checking for the proper zig-zag around the border.

I have the bottom border and the next four rows sewn together. I have the next four rows pinned together.

This was all done on Monday and Tuesday. It was Tuesday night that I realized I was running short on blocks! What!?? I was sure I had counted correctly. But short, so apparently I messed up somewhere.

Initially, I was just going to leave off that last row, sew the border on and call it finished. But the more I thought about it the more I wanted it done right. I still have William Morris fabric in the stash. Just make the necessary blocks and get'er done!

So I spent yesterday making blocks. It was pretty straightforward work, but slow. I needed six, decided to make 7 just to have an extra one to plug in somewhere if variety warranted it. I got three made. Slow going, indeed.
 

This morning I made the other 4. Because I had them all planned out and trimmed, the sewing went so much faster. But going faster isn't necessarily good because if you study those 4 blocks in the photo above, a glaring error awaits my discovery. At the point I was taking the picture, I hadn't yet seen it.

I was preparing to show off individual blocks - some of the ugliest; some of the prettiest. Here's my nomination for ugliest.

This is what you get when you are using what has already been cut, and the supply is limited. Garbage blocks are easily hidden in a quilt as busy as this one promises to be.

This is my nomination for prettiest. I snapped the picture, then saw the mistake. Aaaggghhh! How in the world did this slip past me? Because I was speeding through with my chain piecing - a block got twisted the wrong way in the process.

I grabbed the seam ripper and took the block apart. It didn't take long to set things right.

 

Much better! Worth the extra effort to correct the mistake, but such an aggravation so near to the end of the quilt-making process.

I now have the final row in place. All the border blocks are arranged the way I want. Now I sew. Blocks become rows, rows become an ever-growing quilt top. I'm liking it!

It's not very likely that I will finish this top in time for show and tell tomorrow morning, but that's okay. It was a self-imposed deadline, and one that kick-started me to finish this quilt. Truth: I need a kick in the seat every now and then. 

Have a great rest of your first day of fall!

Happy Quilting, Friends!