Dear Jane

I wanted to spend quality time with you and instead I am spending quantity time with you. Sigh. I finally pulled out all the binders and fabrics to continue working on the triangles to finish you. Little did I know that paper piecing is an art that is easily forgotten when neglected for, say a year or so. Brenda Papadakis, your biographer, tells us that "what we do most we do best". Well, it appears that I make mistakes most.

Right side # 1

I started with RS1. It appears to be a very simple straight forward block. Nope. Paper piecing is done backwards and upside down. It is very systematic but NOT logical. I have to remember to not try to figure it out and think. I did most of the seams twice and some 3 times. I stitched the middle section wrong and had the chevrons pointing down instead of up.
That wide band at the base I did 4 times. First time I used the white. Second time I realized that there was a pattern that could be centered. Third time I centered it crooked. Fourth time I centered it straight and had enough to reach both ends at the same time. Good thing I still have a big box of scraps. Then I sewed on the white coping strips too narrow the first time. Then I trimmed them to what I thought was straight only to find that when I sewed the triangles on each side, they were crooked. Now, this is the first of 52 pieced triangles, 56 fabric triangles and 4 corner kites. I figured I should at least get this one right. So, after removing the fabric triangles the second time, I got it right.

I was sewing what I thought was an accurate 1/4 inch seam from the edge of the fabric triangle. But it ended up crooked. So, instead, I stitched along the edge of the paper pieced unit using the seam there as a guide. Not sure why, but it worked. I had tried to sew these up with my Brother that handles the bulk very well, except that somehow the bobbin case fell out and when I tried to get it, I pushed it into the underside of the machine case and had a time trying to get it out. The machine sits down inside a craft table. I finally turned the machine upside down and gave it a shake and it fell out.


For TR # 2 I thought I was all warmed up. Yes. Warmed up to continue making errors. The worst one was sewing on a white tree trunk. Then, I had not matched the ends carefully and the triangle on the left was off, so, back to the seam ripper that is never out of reach. Then, the same issue with the coping strips. So same solution. I had pinned several of these units then chain pieced them. Then pressed them. Then found the errors. I think they look pretty good now.

Top Row # 2

I am glad that I took the time now to redo these units now. Otherwise, I would complete all the triangles then chain piece all the units then press them all and then find them all out of line.

Blessings,
Chris