A Painful Lesson Learned

I'm working on my 2nd project - an Ohio Star quilt. I've been having a ball with this. Got the little pieces all cut out and started stitching everything together.

I quickly assembled one star block - you would have seen that if you caught last week's post. But after that I took an "assembly line" approach and stitched together all the "triangle blocks" first - then assembling them into the star blocks only after all the triangles were done.

It all went by pretty fast. Unfortunately once I started assembling the star blocks I realized that I had a problem. The fabric I was working with actually stretches just a little in one direction. I hadn't noticed that as I was making the triangle blocks. But the effect is that it's just about impossible to get the stars assembled so that all the points are lined up perfectly (about half my triangle blocks ended up being pulled "off side" just a little). Had I done 4 "triangles" and then made the second block, I would have caught it early on. But I didn't.

I was sick about it and thought briefly about pulling out my seam ripper and doing it all over again.

But... dear reader... as you will quickly learn by following me... I'm no perfectionist. Far from it.

The truth is that the blocks look just fine even if they aren't perfect.

Of course, on my next project I'll know to test elasticity in both directions and I won't be caught by this again. But for now? Well... the purists will no doubt be cringing.

Me? I say "PHOOOEY!"

Good enough is good enough.