Sunday, March 7, 2021

IG Quilt Fest ~ Day 7 ~ Lessons Learned ~ Sew Your Own Way


Sew Your Own Way

(to the tune of "Go Your Own Way")

#IGQuiltFest2021 ~ Day 7 ~ Lessons Learned 

This prompt took me down a few paths.

I finally decided to take a walk in the park with my

 Checkers in the Park Quilt

which sits as a freebie on my sidebar.

I love this quilt.

It lives in my large picnic basket waiting for a new adventure.

I hope in the warm weather this year that it gets more out and about

 than it did last year.  

Maybe I should make some picnic masks and add them to the basket.

I digress ... back to sewing lessons learned ... 

the focus is on that narrow blue border 

between the red print and the outer block border. 

I am very much a learn-by-doing, 

make my mistakes and figure out how to fix them myself, 

and then move-on type of quilter.

My blog began as a personal journal of my quilt making and it still is just that. 

I do post tutorials, but they only show what I did to make my blocks,

sew my quilt, quilt my quilt, bind my quilt.

 I "sew what works for me" and then I share "my way."

I do not presume that "my way" should be "thy way."

Sew your own way.

After I posted this free tutorial, a reader emailed me (several times)

to insist that I could not possibly have 

cut that blue border strip to a certain size.

It was my first encounter with a quilt police officer.

This was what I cut.

She told me my strips had to have been 2"

and that I needed to "put on my big girl panties" 

and admit and correct my mistake.

Now, I will admit that I have made many mistakes over the years,

but this was not one of them.

My response was This Post.

The was posted in 2014 and happened to be my 500th Blog Post.

For some unknown-to-me reason,

this is statistically one of my most read posts on my blog.

It is about doing what works for you in your own sewing room,

not making perfect quilts

and just enjoying the journey and the quilt.


Here is the

The person who emailed me did make this quilt 

and her quilt did look to have wider inner border, 

as is the strips had been cut 2" wide, 

which is what worked for her.

If you sew it, cut and sew it your own way

Be ready to adapt this to fit your own sewing needs.

Follow your own quilt muse and your own sew sense.



You will hopefully end up with a pretty quilt like this one.

Checkers, anyone?

:-) 



3 comments:

Teresa said...

I love your picnic quilt...looks like in to me.

Rebecca Smith said...

I likely would cut it to two inches but that’s just because I don’t like sewing with small strips personally. I love the way it worked for you. (I’d also probably get frustrated with myself when I realized the small strips would mean less math)

piecefulwendy said...

I can see why you like this quilt so much; it's perfect for a picnic. The fabrics are so cheerful and fun, and the design is lovely. I like a narrow border now and then. I'm sorry you were so pestered by the commenter. I have a song going on in my head now, a riff on the Fleetwood Mac song "Go Your Own Way" is now "Sew Your Own Way". Heehee.