Over confident...

Have you ever seen a pattern and thought, Oh, I can do that. I don't need the pattern! Well, lately I've been having a lot of those moments. I think for me sometimes it's a sickness! Any way we have a little table topper in the shop made out of our new Moda Candies and some ladies were asking about the pattern. We'll I have searched high and low. I thought it was on the Moda Designers Blog Hop, however I must be mistaken. I have not been able to locate it for free as I promised. So I thought, that looks easy enough I'll just throw one together and post the tutorial. Sadly it didn't turn out the way I wanted, but I was able to salvage my efforts and will try again!

So here's what I did...

First take a candy bundle and sew all the squares together to make a square. (Note: this was my first problem, since mine was NOT a perfect square.)

 

I just randomly chose the squares, my only goal was not to place two of the same fabrics together. But then my OCD kicked in and I did have to lay out my strips to make sure I liked they way they were arranged. I just can't be totally random!

 



The key to any patch work is the pressing! When I look at the finished product of any block, the blocks that were pressed as they went are much more crisp and all the little corners line up perfectly. For me that's a nice block! So after I sewed all my strips together I pressed. One way and then the other so all my seams nested nicely.

Then I pin! I know it's a lot of steps and I know some of you say 'pin, smin' I can sew it without pinning. All my seam are nested! However, fabric moves when you sew and you will be much happier with the results if you take the time and pin those nested seams! As one OCD quilter to another, doesn't it make you sad when those corners are just off? Even though no one else will notice, you know that YOU will, so pin my dear! You'll be happy that you did!

 

 

Once you have all your seams pinned and then you sew. Take your piece back to the iron and press your strips over. I press the stitching then fold over the row and let the iron hover, letting the steam do the work for me. Then PRESS. You will get a nicer seam and you won't stretch your fabric.

 

Next I laid out my square. Doesn't look square? However to make the topper in the shop you need a perfect square. So I laid it out and quilt my square. It was so nice and that's when it went down hill!

So smarty pants me, thought I could fold this like an ice cream cone and cut my scallops and I'd be done. Ha! Ha! Well, first I didn't have a perfect square and cutting the scallops isn't as easy as it sounds.

 

 

However, I was able to salvage my efforts. So my promise to you is I'll try again to get that scalloped topper done! And show you how...

 



 

 

 

Hope you try making something new! Just enjoy the process, even if it doesn't come out! It's all fun. Happy stitching and may your bobbins always be full!