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| Geometric Bee 10" x 10" |
It's not a huge quilt, so 10" square it has a few touchy spots that if you aren't paying attention to can trip you up. And at one point...I was not paying attention!
After getting the fabric for the wings pulled and approved by my customer, I quickly got to work. I printed the pattern templates, made one wing section...and saw that I totally messed it up! I had a color in the wrong place, but worse than that...I discovered I didn't print the templates at 100%! In this case I was glad I messed up!
The other mistake and it was a costly mistake, was one of the legs! See that red circle? I used a piece of background fabric instead of a piece of black fabric. It looks he has an amputated leg...not good!
You know what was even worse than that? I didn't notice it until I had the entire block finished. Had I saw it in the state of the above photo it wouldn't have been so bad. But, no such luck. I ended up having to rip out the leg section, reprint the leg template and make an entirely new section. Then, insert the piece and make it look like nothing ever happened! I did it, but I didn't like doing it!
Crisis averted, moving on! I did almost the exact quilting on this bee as I did on the pink one. Stippling in the background, straight lines on the body and basic quilting inside each wing color.
The back detail along with corners to hang. I added a scrappy pieced binding because it matches the wings and give this little quilt some pizazz!
Other than extra time for all my mishaps, this block goes together fairly quick. I always enjoy paper pieced projects big, small, simple or complex!
Great job, even with a couple of “oops”! The pieced binding is perfect! Do you have a formula so you don’t end up with a seam at a corner or do you just “wing it?” She’s really cute!
ReplyDeletehe's so cute! I had a similar tear apart/redo on an fpp bee block this morning. ugh
ReplyDeleteIt’s frustrating, isn’t it?! I was in a zone and was oblivious to the mistake. Hope your block ended up okay too!
DeleteThat's the joy of paper piecing, right? It can bite ya if you're not paying attention. I have done that too, not noticing a mistake until the block is done. There is muttering. Then it gets fixed. Love the final piece with those beautiful gold wings!
ReplyDeleteIt is part of the paper piecing fun! Frustrating, but in the end it worked out. I did have a few choice words to myself during the fixing phase!
DeleteSuch a wonderful little wallhanging. My husband is a bee keeper and I think he would enjoy it if I made one and hung it up during the spring/summer season. Your work is always so nice and none of us would know the struggles if you didn't confess to be human like the rest of us!! (wink,wink).
ReplyDeleteI love this geometric bee block. Great job persevering! Take care, Mary.
ReplyDeleteOh, that is fun to look at!
ReplyDeleteSo wait -- if you didn't print the patterns at 100%, did you print them (and make this bee) larger or smaller than the pattern intended? Your finished bee is gorgeous, but I really love that you shared what went wrong along the way. Social media is full of beautiful finishes and it's easy to forget that the biggest difference between a project fail and a successful finish is NOT whether or not the quilter screwed anything up along the way. The difference is whether the quilter gave up when they ran into trouble, or whether they reached for the seam ripper (again and again!) and kept on trying until they got it right! :-)
ReplyDeleteToo bad about the oops...but it turned out great. Great colours.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone who has ever paper pieced has messed up which fabric goes where at least once, lol. Fixing it is never fun, but your bee still turned out gorgeous. I love the yellow and gold wings and using the same colours for the binding looks perfect.
ReplyDeleteYour mini quilt looks absolutely beeeeeautiful.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how I missed this, but I am so glad you were featured at NTT today so I got a chance to admire it!! You are the pping queen!
ReplyDeleteI have had similar mishaps with my paper-pieced blocks. I usually scream. Your bee is fantastic!
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