I'm sure that all of my quilting friends that are following my blog know that not everything you find on the internet is accurate. I was on facebook and found a site Beautiful Quilt Fabric and I thought it was a decent site and then today I was looking at some of their stuff and there is a tutorial on that page that gives directions for making a square in a square block. Looks really fine on the surface, but the blocks were 8" blocks and she cut the corner squares 4 inches instead of 4 3/8" which means that at each side there is no 1/4" seam allowance. Therefore all the points are cut off of her blocks when they are sewn together. When you really look at the picture of the quilt then you can see that the points are gone, but anyone who didn't really look would likely wind up cutting all their fabric and then they would have a mess or else they would have to go back and recut all the 8" blocks which would be a pain. So a word of advice here, if you decide to do a quilt from an online tutorial, please be sure to do a mock block with some scrap fabric before you go out and buy all of your fabric and cut it all up.
I have also tried doing some of the online mystery quilts and found that the directions were wrong and I found that out over half way through the project and then the author goes back and says, oh by the way there was a miss print and it should have been but the blocks at 2 1/2" not 2". Darn I hate when stuff like that happens! There is no way that I know of to keep this from happening.
Sad to say I have even bought books and when I started making one of the quilts found an error. Now here is the bad part...............Maybe I did not buy the book locally but bought it when I was out of town somewhere. Maybe I purchased it at Hobby Lobby or online from Amazon. When I send an e-mail to the author (and I have) with the correction I have received an email back from the author saying they have already been advised of that and they sent out a correction for shops to put with their books that have not yet been sold. Well guess what, I didn't get it and nobody keeps a record of who bought which book so even when the shop gets the corrections how many people who purchased the book really get the message? My guess is not many. One thing that you can do when you purchase a book is to look up the author online and look at the book and see if there is any notation that there are corrections for misprints. Most of them will have a contact and you can even send an email to ask them if there are any corrections before you start the quilt. You can even ask them if there are different directions for different sizes of that quilt as many books will only give you one size and not tell you how much extra fabric you need for a larger size quilt.
Well, now I will try to get off my soapbox and just let you know that I have been on vacation this past week and I have been busy as a bee trying to get some things done. One of the things I have completed this week is a quilt for my friend Pat. This gal is an awesome topper!! She is so very precise with her sewing that her quilts are a true joy to quilt. Don't have to worry about wonkie corner and borders at all! When I looked at the quilt I thought, hum that looks like a Fons and Porter design and after I had finished I asked her about the pattern and believe it or not I was right! That doesn't happen all that often really so it made me feel really good. I'm not going to post the pictures of Pat's quilt today because I know she wants to bring it to guild and have a show and tell presentation so I will not step ahead of her.
Also this week I have been working on a quilt for the guild to donate to the local crisis shelter. I've got the top together now and just have to get it on the machine and get it quilted. Got to figure out what I need to do about backing first and I already have the batting so that should work well.
I'm also working on a t-shirt quilt for Savannah. This is a memory quilt made from her dad's t-shirts and other shirts. I will post pictures of that quilt also next week and maybe next week will just be all pictures. I'm sure you would all like that!
If you get a chance go by frogpond studio and look at Sandi's quilts. Another of my friends who does so really awesome quilting. She has a wonderful eye for color and does a great job with piecing her tops. Of course Sandi was a teacher so the math does not throw her for a loop! I love visiting other peoples sites as they give me some wonderful ideals. Like I need something else to do. lol.
I hope you all have a wonderful quilty week! Keep safe, warm and dry!!
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