Running With Donna, Part 2

Picking up from where we left off yesterday ...

... following the diagrams on the pattern very carefully, I kept piecing my blocks together and before too long came up with these:

Uh-oh...

Take a look at the block in the lower right-hand corner of the photo. Oops. My mistake. I made a few extra blocks, as I wasn't sure which pair of triangles-turned-into-rectangles I needed to slice up and sew together to make the right block. Does that even make sense? I just made a few, then found the right one and had this:

Yea!  Much better.

Before I forget, the main fabric is by Jason Yenter, one of my favorite designers! Click here for more info!

OK... so here's where my head was about to explode. Remember yesterday when I mentioned having a first clue that the pattern-writer should have spent more time in math class?  Here was my next clue.  I don't mean any offense; there are plenty of times when I have to fudge things a bit, ease the fabric in to make it fit, or even have to shave a TINY bit off (like 1/16" maybe...) but honestly! When you purchase a pattern, you expect the author to have done the math for you instead of giving directions like this:

See that part about having to trim away the EXCESS pieced border to length? Now she HAS to know that fabric is 44" wide, so that's the longest any of us are going to cut our fabric for the center. Both Donna and I, when we laid our side pieces up to our middle fabric, got this:

ON ALL FOUR ENDS!!! It's a good, healthy INCH!!! %$#&!!!  There were many HBO words being said both here and in Virginia. You can't "fudge" 2 inches worth (an inch on either end) to make something fit. Or I can't - and trust me, I can fudge things with the best of them. I had no alternative but to whack it off.

Yes, I had used my walking foot the whole way to avoid stretching - and used starch, starch and more starch. (Never pre-starch fabs that you will store, by the way. The starch can attract bugs. Bugs aren't good.)

Anyway, here's how it looked, pre-borders:

Yes, I like it, but look at where the sides meet those end panels. Boo!

And if you read the part up there in the directions that I squiggly-marked about the 2" borders - I'm sorry, but just pinning a long length of fabric to the edge of your quilt, sewing it on, then cutting to size?  That is the best way I know to get wavy borders.  Knowing that the Quilt Police actually would arrest me if I did that (and I wouldn't blame them!), I measured the center and along each side - took the average measurement, then cut the borders to size BEFORE sewing them on.  Sheesh.   I mean ...

Moving right along and shaking those HBO words off... here it is with the borders added:

I like the design, I just don't like how those last logs have to be split. So to speak.

I didn't have much of the tone-on-tone sunflowers left, or I probably would have backed it in that - instead, I pieced my leftover blocks (the spare blocks I made after my "oops") with some fabs that coordinate with the Jason Yenter Kansas fabric and came up with this:

The back and the top

Yea! I will make this again - this was a practice for Donna, who is going to do the pattern again using some gorgeous batik fabric she bought. Next time around, I'll be making my own rules and will NOT be chopping any logs off! Seriously!

I did some echo quilting and some free-motion quilting on it and am currently sewing the binding on. I'll post Part 3 soon!

Thanks for reading!