Girls Gone Wild

I’m working at home today, mainly writing a guardian ad litem report and conversing with children, parents and psychologists by telephone. Let’s hope no attorneys call. Actually, I am just kidding. The lawyers I usually work with understand this area of law and are generally sane and reasonable. SANE and REASONABLE are attributes that are highly prized in my area of practice. Husband is en route to Oklahoma to look at a house we may bid on and it is just me and the girls (Jezebel and Evelyn). Woo Hoo! Bring on the whiskey, meth and cheetoes!

I am just about finished with the second patriotic block. I used most of the same fabrics as the first one but it looks quite different. It has 9 parts but is not a traditional 9 patch because the pieces aren’t all the same size.

See my rotating mat? That is great for trimming up paper pieced blocks.


I usually trim the inside seams (which connect to each other) but leave the outside edges floppy until I do the final squaring up. That usually serves to avoid ending up with a too-small block.

I first trimmed the interior pieces then pieced all the pieces together.



See the problem? Yup, I trimmed all four sides on the smaller sections instead of leaving a floppy outside edge on the white fabric end. This means that the widest the block can be is what you are looking at unless I “fix” it. It was supposed to be 12.5 inches wide but is closer to 11.5 inches wide. This pattern is always treacherous but normally I outwit it by leaving generous fabric ends.

Here it is under my 12.5 inch ruler that I use to square it up.












Well, Crap. I was hoping the tape measure was malfunctioning and my eyes were just buzzed on cheetoes. No such luck. See it? The outer edges of the inside pieces are too short. If I’d left the white fabric end floppy (untrimmed) all I’d need to do is plop that ruler on it and square her up. But no. I am an utter failure and shouldn’t be allowed to live.





So now, I add a red border so that the block is the correct size. We all know that it is going to all but disappear when I stitch all the blocks together. Not only that but candidly, that doesn't look too square to me... Double crap. Oh well.



I still like the pattern and am pretty pleased with the result!

Lunch is done. Off to work on that report.