August 07, 2010

Blessings from Heaven Quilt Back * Construction *

Yesterday I sat at the sewing machine for a while stitching together the back for the Blessings from Heaven Quilt. Currently I have it up to 45". I was having some trouble with my four patch blocks as it was taking 6 four-patch blocks plus a half of a four patch. I couldn't for the life of me imagine why I would have built this into the borders (as I'd already sewn all the four patches I thought I'd need). So I went looking for my trouble.
The answer is in that 45", this top should never be 45" it should in fact be 42, and instead of a 21" center I should have an 18" center. I knew all that but yet some how when I bordered out the polka dotted print I bordered it big and didn't measure check until much to late. Luckily I have found more squares so I was able to make extra patches instead of seam ripping the ones I had only to remake them which I did the first go round.

Last night I went to order the fabric for the Patisserie Quilt only to discover they are completely sold out of the all-important Patisserie fabric!!! After my horror settled a bit and I screwed my head back on I started searching through their quilt kits. You see one good thing that Connecting Threads has going for them is that they don't charge for the patterns or for putting together your quilt kit, so cost of the included fabric is all you pay for. Yes, you have to buy all of the included fabrics but last night I felt that was a small price to pay for still being able to buy and make this quilt for DD. The quilt I found was Antionette's Stars Quilt Kit, which has four beloved yards of the Patisserie fabric, it has a pink on white fabric that I will use in place of a blue on white fabric as well as a dark pink that I will use in place of a lighter pink. There is a lighter pink included but I couldn't make it work in my quilt so that as well as the two greens will simply end up being surplus for later. I think it works out that I purchased 1 1/2 yards total more than I otherwise would have, but then as they were out of the Marine blue blender I'd planned to use I went with two different shades of blue for the ribbon border and as one of those blues was 50% off it balanced itself out a little bit.

Ironically this quilt kit, which was the only one with over a yard of the Patisserie fabric, included uses the 54-40-fight star planned in my quilt. Only time will tell what size their star is and if any of the included pattern will help me with mine.

I would love to see the Blessings from Heaven back finished by the time the new fabric arrives. Ideally the back would be done, the front embellished, and I'll have started quilting but DD is having a sleepover all this weekend so I don't know how much I'll be able to do. Time will tell.

3 comments:

Vicki said...

I love how the back is looking but oh that must be frustrating. I'm glad that you were able to figure it out and have a solution. Also even though you weren't able to get exactly the fabrics you wanted, I'm glad you still got the
Patisserie fabric, which is the most important one and the kit was a decent price.

Aunt Spicy said...

Both the front and back look amazing! Way to go on sorting it out!

stitchinpenny said...

having been in and out and not stitching at all I had lost track of you. The current quilt is great. I end up with the wrong size on things if I don;t draw them on draft paper. sometomes I add the seam allowance twice or not at all. As you know there is always a way to fix everything.