Friday Night Sew-In

Well my weekend was so busy that I forgot to post about what I did last Friday night. My friend Debbie and I got together to sew for a few hours so that we could participate in the latest Friday Night Sew In. Debbie came over with her sewing machine and quilting supplies and joined me for an evening of cutting and sewing out the latest block for our Starry Night quilt, which is the BOM for Cornerstone Quilt Shop in Fairfield, CA. We meet the third Saturday of every month, and we have to have our block completed and turned in then, and so with both of us being procrastinators this was the perfect opportunity for us to get them done and participate in the FNSI.

Debbie had already cut out her fabric for the BOM so she was ahead of me when we started. I didn't have too much trouble cutting out my fabric for the block so I soon joined her at the sewing machine. I had just recently ordered 2 different types of 1/4 inch quilting foots for my machine so I decided to try it out. I did one little square and hurriedly measured out the seam. It looked like the seam was measuring just a little bit smaller than 1/4 inch but I thought that would be okay. I was thinking that was what they are always referring to as a scant 1/4 inch seam.

Well I should have stopped and remeasured a few other of my seams. Needless to say that I didn't and soon had my block almost done minus the borders. I go and press it and go and measure it and it is way bigger than it should be. I guess they are right at the quilt store when they say one little bit off carried out over the whole block or the whole quilt makes a big difference. It was almost 1 inch bigger than it should be. I knew I couldn't just trim it because I would cut off all of my points. So I decided to rip everything out and start over. I had it almost completely ripped apart and Debbie suggested that if I had enough fabric left over it would probably be easier and quicker to just redo the whole thing. So Debbie left to go home and I stayed up and cut out another one and resewed the entire block. That was after I got my machine calibrated to precisely sew a 1/4 inch seam! So it took me all night but I did get my block done in time!