Try Again - Don't Give Up

Not a pretty site

So, as I said in the last post, I tried joining my larger units without resorting to using pins to keep things lined up and I paid the price.  Making the individual 9-patch blocks and joining 4 to 6 of those blocks to make the bigger units rarely requires the use of pins to maintain alignment of the blocks and form perfect corners.  However, the bigger the units, the more imperative it becomes to use pins to make sure you don't have to rip out any seams.

When I saw the state of the join between my 8-block unit and my 12-block unit, I knew what came next--locating my reading glasses, seam ripper and a spot under my bright lamp and just trying not to get to antsy with what had to happen next.  I'm not a patient person when it comes to tearing out seams whether in garments or other sewing projects.  I'd almost rather start a new project.  But one of the things I hate worse than tearing out a seam is not having the corners of the quilt blocks match up.  So, tear out the seam it is!

After I got the seam torn out, I pinned each junction of the 1-inch blocks.  Eleanor Burns (quiltinaday.com) has this amazing technique for sewing and pressing quilt blocks that make the seams nestle together so that achieving beautiful points and corners is often easy without using pins at all.  However, as I said earlier, sometimes it's advisable to resort to old school pinning of those joining points to improve the quality of my day.

After ripping out the seam across the joining points that were misaligned before, I pinned each one.  Then, I set my sewing machine for a longer stitch.  The quilting stitch on my machine is teeny-tiny but I like that.  I think it will give the quilt a longer life.  However, it's a bear when it comes to ripping out misguided seams.  So, after pinning the joining points and setting my sewing machine for a longer stitch, I sew a temporary seam about two threads away from where the final stitching will go.  Why?  If for some reason the joining points shift even while using pins, it will be easier to rip out.  If I'm successful in all blocks being aligned, then, I'll run the regular piecing stitch to the right of the temporary stitching and pull it out when I'm done.

It's been a while since I've made a quilt like this and this little episode has made me realize I should pin and temporarily stitch all the longer joints of the quilt top from here on.