an accidental quilter??

I swear I manage to put blocks and quilts together totally by accident .. I made a goal to get some kitty blocks done - haven’t touched them in about 2 days as i was working on the scrappy swap. I picked out a pattern that has templates, and I’m not gonna say I like them .. I would be lying .. I usually have some sort of problem doing them .. for whatever reason .. i think in order to find out, I’ll have to sit down with another quilter and they can watch what I do .. my first quilt class called for rotary cutting and I’ve been doing it ever since.

The pattern called Kelvin’s Kitties from the The Cat's Meow is really cute and I want it for my quilt. So this was a block (2 actually) I had set to do. First of all, templates .. **groan** okay, I’ll work through it. I’m happily piecing away, the ear points worked and all of a sudden I come across an inset seam .. **double groan** I ohhhh so carefully get all the seams lined up and flip it over and check out the seams .. OML they work!!! Then I realized, that I had put the wrong head on the cat body .. holybiblebatman are you kidding me!?!?!? Back I go and rip it all out .. I was so proud of myself for getting the seam in right - yeah it took a bit and I was really slow with it, but it was in and it was fine (with the exception of the wrong head :S) .. so out the stitches came .. When I did the head again, it went quicker this time and by the time I did the second cat, it was a snap! Mind you I tripped over 3 more inset seams in this block .. but i was undaunted this time. I even found a way to continue sewing without locking the stitch and restarting .. Basically treat it as a pivot and turn junction - don’t have to worry about the seams lining up again - now to learn the twirling seams trick .. soon as i get my DSL back, I'll search for it.

I did get the blocks done, one will likely have to be done again .. and I am noticing that while I am doing a 1/4“ seam, I really had to fidge the foot unit onto the body .. Almost seems like I’m going to have to find out where I sit for a scant 1/4” seam. I’ve gotten a LOT of great ideas on the lists and the easiest will prolly be finding where it is on my machine .. 1 to 2 threads shy of a 1/4“ .. bah .. not going to be fun ..

I’m proud of my effort for these blocks - I tackled two challenges (for me) in piecing, templates and inset seams .. one block is definitely NOT squared, that one I will likely do again or border both blocks - we’ll have to see how it sits towards the end. Altho, I will likely do that block again .. the dicky just isn’t standing out like I want it to .. I probably should have done a dark purple for the dicky instead of multi coloured background .. It didn’t sit right with me before I even cut it - I think that I need to start listening to my instincts on this .. specially when it comes to colour.