edna mode

here's a look at my pinky-purple "edna" quilt in the earliest stages. i've had a lot of fun making this quilt even though it's been so labor-intensive, thanks to my own ideas of making it very scrappy with the 16 patch blocks and directional, scrappy stars. "edna" can be quite beautifully simple. maybe next time. this one is anything but simple. there have been soooo many mistakes along the way, but i just keep plugging along.

wrong and correct

 

first, i misunderstood the pattern and made my first star/stripes interface wrong. i mentioned i don't usually use patterns, so i misunderstood the graphic for adding the star points to the ends of the stripes. i think the pattern was attempting to show piece placement 3-dimensionally with seemingly 2d graphics  and i read it as being 2d, so i put the corner square in the wrong place. i thought it was odd and unexpected to put the corner squares where it looked like the pattern said, but i told myself, "trust the process - do it exactly as the pattern shows." and i messed it up. but, i knew how to fix it! and fortunately for me, i was able to use the same stripe pieces, so i only lost two little squares. i turned two of the cut-offs into a tiny hst block, so its okay. and now i know a little more about pattern reading!

i got the first set of 5 with the bird print made and moved on to the strawberry print the next morning. with the first set of bird prints, i was doing everything one at time, which is more laborious. i did it that way because i was figuring it all out. with this second set i got a lot smarter about batch-processing and created a chain-piecing process. this worked great until i realized i forgot to factor in directionality for the strawberries. this wasn't an issue with the bird blocks so it caught me off guard. but with the strawberries, i wanted them all facing the same way throughout the star and i had to figure that out. it's not too hard, once you wrap your head around it. but since the four sides are coming from different directions, i'm going to have to figure it out each time i do another side. maybe i'll share that when i get to it.

since i'm cutting all these corners off, i went ahead and made a second seam so i could make little hsts out of the corners. they're small and very cute, and a bit tedious. it definitely added more time to my making. but i can't waste them, so i went ahead and added those steps to my process. i'll probably incorporate them on the quilt back somehow or put them in another quilt altogether.

once or twice i cut the corner pieces off on the wrong side of the second seam i'd made for the hsts. shoot! i lost those hsts, but at least i didn't ruin the larger piece. i include these mishaps to show that even with constant mistake making, i still make quilts! just gotta keep calm and carry on.

day three, once i had the first two sets of stripes done, i decided to turn my attention to the 16 patch blocks for a change and because i was going to need them in place to start assembly. this is where i got a real headache, a maths headache! i thought i was going to be making 10" blocks, which would me i could use 2.5" squares. then i thought a little more about seam allowances and realized maybe i would need 25 patches at 5x5 squares. i didn't have enough different fabrics for that and it would be a whole lot more work. what else could i do?

somewhere along the way i looked at the cutting instructions for the squares again and realized they were 10" cut (layer cake friendly) and would finish at 9.5" sq. uh, oh! that was entirely different. the real headache of trying to make that work started. i was getting discouraged. should i resize my strips i'd already made? then my brain said, "what are you thinking? you can make the size you need with 2.5" squares. that works out right." so i laughed at myself and got cutting. i cut a whole entire set of rows, 41 squares each of 4 fabrics, and started sewing my rows up.

i was having a great time doing this.

somewhere along the way, after i cut the whole set (using up two of my fabrics completely), i did some more quick math in my head and realized i was so wrong. i was on my way to making 8" finished squares, not 9.5" i just wanted to cry. i turned everything off and left the sewing room for a nap. 

but instead i started looking at "edna" on instagram to see if anyone else had done smaller than four-patches and could help me with my math. i found one! i sent a message to the maker, lydia, and on a whim sent another one to the pattern writer, jennifer, in case she knew how to do it.

jennifer got back to me right away and we began a whole discussion on the topic. we noticed the star points didn't match up in size with the squares, so they weren't 2.5". lydia must have done the crazy math and cut things at 1/8ths of inches. i wasn't up for that.

in the end, i decided to shorten my stripes to fit the 8" blocks. this would simplify my math dilemma, save the fabrics i had already cut, and shrink the quilt a little, which was desirable. it's a generous 64"x77", which is a little larger than i normally make my throw quilts. 

problem solved.

back to work.

my quilt making may feel like this sometimes, but i still get quilts made in the end! it's going to be a while before i'm done with this one. so many small parts and tons of cutting still to do! but i'm up for the process of this one, fussy cutting and directional star points, and all. i'm enjoying the process and making it the way i want to.

 every time i say the name of this quilt pattern - i hear the edna character from the incredibles movie saying her name from this clip in my head. "ed-na mode." that's the mode i'm in!