Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Problem with Chain Piecing

I love chain piecing... it is an efficient way creating identical block parts one after another... mindless work that quickly gets the job done.

The problem  is when I do something wrong... like stitching the yellow square on in the wrong direction.
And since I'm chain piecing I do it wrong multiple times  (in this case 72 wrongly sewn blocks).  I sewed.  I pressed.   I should have double checked before cutting off the bonus triangles... but nooooo!


And of course, I have no more of this fabric!  I bought it last year when I was in East Tennessee.  It was one of those sales where there is a pile of assorted scraps and you fill your bag with whatever you want for a few dollars.  I don't have time to spend the day driving back East in hopes of finding more, so I gave my husband a fabric sample as he headed out the door to work and if I didn't find anything in town... as a last ditch effort... I would call him and he would go to the quilt shop near work to look for something for me. (Isn't he the best!)  So I spent way too much time this morning driving around town looking for a replacement... willing the fabrics I saw in front of me to match.  Unfortunately, the local quilt shop is closing soon and is down to bare bones with nothing even close. I found some near misses in  Hobby Lobby, Hancocks or even Wal-Mart... but nothing that spoke to me like the original fabric.  I called my husband at work and he went over on his lunch hour and came home with  a couple possibilities.

Here are the 3 best alternatives

I'm not really loving any one of them so I'll make several blocks with each alternative and that will be that.  They don't look bad, they just aren't as good as the original to me.  (sigh)


1 comment:

  1. I really hate when that stuff happens. I chain piece too and have had similar problems when stitching something wrong.
    Your options look good. I am sure it will be a beauty when you get it together.

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