Why I’ll never be a famous quilter

Isn’t there a saying that applies to quilters such as, “Measure twice, cut once”?  I didn’t do that today, so that is why I will never be a prize winning quilter, I expect.  But never mind, we do this for fun, don’t we?

I’m making a table runner for our new coffee table.  My first hurdle of the day was trying to find my very handy book called “Around the Block”, by Judy Hopkins, which shows how to make 200 rotary cut blocks in six sizes.  But my book wasn’t where I expected it to be, so I had to do a bit of searching.  There it was, tucked away in a corner of the bookshelf, I’m so pleased I found it at last.  I had some extra curtain fabric which I wanted to use, and found a couple of extra pieces which I thought would work well.  The chest freezer in the internal garage is just the right height for me to use as a cutting table, and there is room for the ironing board close by, so I was all set to go.

All ready to start

Being predictable, I chose the saw-tooth star block for my table runner.  I cut and sliced, pinned and stitched, and finished up with a bunch of these. 

Star points made

But……. when I came to stitch these pieces on to the centre square of the star, I discovered I’d made a cutting mistake.  The green centre squares were cut five and a half inches, and the star points were five inches.  What to do?  Easy, I’ll just trim the centre squares down to fit, that should do it.  Just as well I’m only making a few stars for a runner, and not for a large quilt, as all the measurements would be way out!

Three star blocks done

Now I’ll just have to stitch them together and add a border.  But I think I’ll leave that for another day.  I’ve made a good start, and  I’m happy with my progress so far.  I’ll stop now before I make any more mistakes, I think.