I’m a frustrated quilter tonight. I have spent the best part of the day working on 1 block for my [3x6] Sampler Bee. I was very happy with my choices of fabrics and how they looked nice together and how the design I chose was nifty. I spent a lot of time cutting pieces from lots of different fabrics. I spent a lot of time sewing the pieces together. Ironing nicely to help with the alignment of the pieces. I did everything by the book.
I finished my block and I was just about to snatch a picture before the day light completely disappeared. But before that I wanted to make it all nice and square it to the 12.5″ it should be. So I measured. Several times. Just shy of 12″.
A lot of unladylike words were used. How could that have been? The design I was using clearly stated ‘When you are done, your block should be 12.5in”. So how come mine wasn’t? I religiously followed the edges of my pieces when sewing them together with my 1/4″ presser foot.
Then I remember another test block I made, which should have been 12.5″ and turned out 1/2″ too short.
Pretty, but too small!
Then, it hit me on the head. If everything else is right, the only reason why my blocks are too small are my seam allowances. So tomorrow morning, when the sun is shining (yeah, right), I’m going to sit at my sewing machine, with carefully cut strips and measure, move my needle to the right, measure some more and then maybe, I’ll be able to get blocks that are what they are supposed to be.
This problem with my seam allowances has never been a problem until now, because they are consistent. I tend to work on my own designs and ideas and it never occurred to me that there was something wrong with my blocks. Because they looked ok! But now that I am in a bee, I need to be very precise. Yes, I should have checked my seam allowances. My punishment is that I have to restart my blocks. Again.
This same thing has happened to me. My foot is not accurate at all and it wasn’t really a problem until I joined a bee too. Good luck on getting it fixed.