The Ys and wherefores!

 It never ceases to amaze me just how difficult it is to sew two pieces of fabric together with a straight seam. No matter how careful I am  to use a measured 1/4 inch seam, not to stretch the pieces when sewing on the bias, to press rather than iron it seems that the pieces still end up skew whiff . When I spend ages measuring each piece, making sure I've got the ruler lined up correctly and only cutting when I'm sure Ive got it right it is puzzling that when two pieces of fabric that are the same size when I cut them turn out to be different sizes when sewn together! But, I am improving and after making the blocks in my latest Craftsy Class,  quaintly called Piece Like a Pro, I have decided that perhaps I am not quite as rubbish at patchwork as I thought.

Donna Thomas, the class instructor,  is very good at explaining and demonstrating the techniques and I have learned a lot from the class. One criticism is the lack of written instructions especially illustrations of the blocks showing what they should look like. I discovered that some of my finished blocks didn't look like hers and when I checked,yes I had got pieces shown the wrong way round, back to front etc! A steep learning curve!

In one of the lessons Donna showed a lovely block which she calls Gentle Breeze. I tried to work out how it was put together, but failed miserably, so I contacted her and she told me it was a pattern she had designed a while ago but had stopped selling. She not only sent me the pattern, but free of charge and also included notes about how to adapt the pattern to cut the shapes with a rotary cutter rather than using templates. 

The pattern requires mastery of the y seam. This involves sewing three pieces of fabric together so that they lie flat a challenge indeed! So You Tube to the rescue with a video showing how it's done and several failed attempts I finally managed to make the block. 

And here it is! Not just lying fairly flat, but the middle is almost in the middle and apart from the horrible fabrics which I took out of the failed block pile, I'm very pleased with myself.

Then the challenge if to decide what fabric to use to make the quilt. Of course I do have a little bit of fabric in my stash, but of course, I don't have anything that would be suitable. Or do I?

Ages ago I bought some very pretty blue and cream fabric which has languished at the bottom of a long forgotten box. I decided to use it as it will split into dark and light and there will be enough to make a lap quilt.

So here is the first sorting of light and dark which I thought would work, and here is the first dark block which I now realise doesn't work!

Having got it together and deciding to overlook the fact that the middle isn't in the middle, I now think that I need to change the background fabric from dark to light to add some contrast and liven it up!

So here is the first light block with the dark background which I think works better!

As for the y seams! These are used to sew the triangles in place  and after some practise I think I have cracked it!

Of course it is all very much displacement activity because it is taking up time I should be spending on Art! But that's for another day!