Back to the Quilt

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Back to the Quilt

For me, it is time to work on a quilt again. I have a 7 day opening to work on it. Last year on June 21, I wrote a blog entry with photos showing where I was at with the quilt. The blog entry is here: As the Petals Unfurl. Shortly after that, I put the quilt away and today I brought it back out of the closet.

The problem that I had last year with the border being crooked is what I am tackling today. It’s not just the border; I am intent on making the body of the entire quilt square. Because of the difficulties with making a straight edge on an object as large as this quilt I am using points of reference. If an object has uneven outside edges, the object can have centered straight-edged points of reference. From the straight center lines, one can make measurements. In the case of this quilt, I am making measurements from the actual edge to an outside point of reference after having centered the quilt on the inside points of reference. Yeah, that does not make a lot of sense, but the method works better than my description of the process. I used a similar method for the first time 27 years ago to cut and lay carpet in an irregularly shaped boat.

Here is my paper and another dry math detail. Because my outside point of reference is a 6’x6’ square, I printed my 36×48 grid graph paper. I marked off a 36×36 square on the graph paper and each square equals 2 inches.

With these measurements, I can see which edge needs what for adjustment. For reference points, each edge is labeled, A, B, C, and D and so they are on the paper as well.

Here are a couple of visuals to help you see why the edges being off is such a big deal and requires all this tedious math.

This is the left side. It doesn’t look that bad, but I don’t like it. The gap between the quilt and the red piece is the problem.

The image below is the right side of the same edge shown above. This is the worse gap.

Based on the measurements, I’ll cut 2 inch wide strips of fabric for the adjuster and sew it on based on the difference between what I want and what I have. The ultimate goal is to have a square quilt of a certain size. The edge with the widest gap is 1.25 inches too narrow. The same edge on the other side is 0.6875 inches to narrow. Lovely number isn’t it? It’s eleven-sixteenths. I don’t know yet quite how I will do this, but I will do it. I suppose plenty of straight pins will be used and I will sew parts of it by hand. Since I have the dimensions mapped on paper at one foot intervals, I could map the fabric adjuster strips for reference points. Once I get this edge straight, it’ll be a no-brainer trip to the finish line.

I left the room for a minute and the cat did this while having a frisky moment.

I guess it is time to get on with this.