Moar Points Practice

By ambar, August 6, 2014

I went down to Quilters Quarters in Stockton on Saturday because they were just starting a new Block-of-the-Month sampler (this one runs for 18 months) and it sounded like fun! They have chosen a traditional block for each state and colored it based on the state bird/flower/gemstone/animal/what have you. (Not the state flag: as Debbie said, “Then it would be a red, white and blue quilt with touches of green and gold!”) While they’re only doing eighteen states, they have designs for all the states, for those who who want to add one or more states to their quilt which aren’t on the class list. (Maybe I should ask if they did a design for Puerto Rico? And then duck.)

So this month kicks off with Colorado Arrowhead, and I got my toys home and was doing fine until I came to the step of cutting out the eight turquoise rectangles (1 7/8″ x 4 1/2″). The fabric provided was about 8.5″ x 5″. I tried laying it out longwise. I tried laying out it widthwise. I stared at it in confusion. Then I multiplied the dimensions of the rectangles; compared that to the area of the fabric provided; and realized there was no force on earth that could get 67.5 square inches of fabric out of a piece measuring 42.5 square inches! I called the shop on Monday to see if I’d lost something. No, it was just a miscut. *phew*

Anyway, the first photo shows it sitting atop its instruction sheet, not yet completely assembled.

And here your heroine realizes that it’s tough to square up a 12.5″ x 12.5″ block on a 12×18 mat. (Fortunately I actually have two of them. Do I have to break down and buy a bigger mat?)

In any case, the points are reasonable, if not PERFECT, and I only dismantled and redid one of the quarter-square-triangle blocks.

I spent way more time than I should have shopping Craigslist on Saturday, and came back with a cabinet alleged to fit my Bernina 801 Sport (well, mostly, I need to pull out the Dremel and cut a new hole in the half-inch board), and what I initially thought was a Singer 27, but turns out to be a 1911 Singer 66 “red eye”. I didn’t manage to save the photos before the Craigslist post was deleted, but try this Flickr page for something similar (if a bit newer and considerably shinier!)

It’s currently at the shop getting a new cord and an overall going-over… the seller plugged it in and showed it off, and then we saw the bare metal on the cord and said “well, let’s be done with that.” Like the linked machine above, it’s a conversion to electric (the spoked wheel would tell you, even if the motor was a Singer, which mine is not!) in a portable (more accurately, luggable! a Featherweight it ain’t) case.

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