Sewing and Sowing

After sewing a lot of curved, gridded triangles and then ripping most of them out I was getting pretty tired of re-doing that motif.  Scroll down to my last post to see the notorious motif.  I spent a couple of hours yesterday in the yard preparing the soil and sowing wildflowers.  There is no point in creating a fancy garden because the deer and the elk just eat their way through it so I feed them with wildflowers and enjoy watching them up close and personal.

Big bull elk chewing his cud and growing his antlers.

The only downside was my body the next day.  It protested mightily and let me know that it was time for a "soft" day.  Thinking about the quilting I want to get done, I decided to do a marathon sew-in.  I started after breakfast carefully stitching the blue motif with tiny-stitch filler.  Once I made up my mind to do this I was able to divert my brain from the tedium.  I was also listening to an intense, suspenseful audiobook.  I stopped for lunch and went right back to it.  Before I knew it I was done.  Relief.  Joy. A little dance.  It feels so good to be able to move on.  There is still more quilting to do, but it is easier and will go much faster.  I WILL finish this quilt!!

I will do what I can in the next few days before I fly off to Seattle.  Then my daughter and I will drive to Oregon for a day before heading north to British Columbia for my granddaughter's bridal shower.  Then we drive back to Seattle.  My 3-month old great-grandson is waiting for me to come cuddle him before I fly home.  I will be gone for about 10 days during which time my sewing machine will go to the hospital.  The "On-Off" button is not working reliably....again.  It makes sense to get it taken care of while I am gone, and it is under warranty.

My pretty mother's day bouquet.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you the time and persistence to finish something special.

Back at you in a couple of weeks.

Path to Perfection

This quilt will be the death of me.  I continued quilting in spite of the fact that I didn't like the way the triangle motif was turning out.  See below and note how the half-diamonds at the bottom are all different sizes.  Not perfect at all.

Uneven geometry.

I kept on going as I couldn't figure out how to get them to look more uniform, but I wasn't sleeping well as my brain worried the problem.  I started with a rounded triangle, the outline of the said motif.  To mark the grid lines I made myself a little "ruler" from clear template plastic and marked curved lines 1/4 inch apart that follow the shape of the triangle sides.

Homemade "ruler."

Then I marked and sewed along the marked lines.  It bothered me and I don't know why I kept going.  Well, yes I do:  I want to finish this quilt!  I puzzled and puzzled over the problem though.  It is seriously ugly.

As I worked I accidentally figured it, out and will share with you how to do it right so you won't join me at the ripping table.  The trick, my friends, is to make the gridlines meet on a dot at the bottom of the outlined motif.  Now all the bottom triangles are of uniform shape and size.  So simple.

Red circles show how lines need to come together.

So much ripping to do!  I will line up a bunch of movies on Amazon Prime to watch as I rip, but in the end the motifs will be uniform and look so much better, although still not perfect.

TIP:  Remember we are all human and it is impossible to achieve perfect perfection.  Don't be too hard on yourself.

Too much perfectionism?  Maybe, but my inner bulldog will carry me through.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you all the perfection you want.