Blithe Fabrics Blog Tour - You don't know what you don't know!

Diamonds quilt with a scrappy binding

When Katarina Roccella posted on Instagram that she was looking for entries for a blog tour for her new fabric line, Blithe, with Art Gallery Fabrics, I got right to work designing a pattern.  I adore Art Gallery Fabrics for their rich color and wonderful hand.  They wash like a dream.  Not to mention that if you got chosen, Art Gallery would send you fabrics to make your project with!

I was so excited when my entry got chosen.  When the fabrics came, I got right to work cutting....

One thing I really love about finished quilt photos...you can take them artistically and keep your eyes off of the flaws.  Pretty much every quilter I know always points out all of the flaws and imperfections in their work.  Some imperfections are more than that though, they're straight up mistakes.

Quilt Back with leftover scraps from the front

This is my first sketch, I did two more after this, with colors and more precision and measurements.  But this is how I always start out.  In my head (sadly), half square rectangles were the same as half square triangles.  Yeah.  I know. DUH.

This is how all of my quilt patterns start out - messy and on graph paper

So I start to sew all of my ALREADY CUT fabrics and this is what I get...no points.  I thought, maybe it's my imprecise sewing.  Some of them look 'sort of' like points.  Sort of.

YIKES!! Where are the points??

Then I do what everyone does.  I Google "half square rectangle" and watch some You-Tube videos.  As my Nonni used to say, PAIN IN A BUCKET.  There were all of these wonderful videos and tutorials about how not to screw up your half square rectangles...like this...

From Heidi of Buttons and Butterflies
http://www.buttonsandbutterflies.com/2015/09/half-rectangle-triangles-tutorial.html

or this one, from the Modern Quilt Guild
https://themodernquiltguild.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/100-days-week-of-shapes-tutorial/

No points here either

So, now I know what I didn't know.  But I didn't then.  So this is what my quilt came out like.  Of course, I had to finish it, it was an honor to have my design chosen.   Too bad my execution wasn't as good as the original design!!

From far away, in the fresh snow, it's pretty.  Just squint.

 My daughter held this up outside in our back yard after the snow, and it looks wonderful in this light.  She's already claimed it.  She has no idea that there are supposed to be nice, sharp points on all of those triangles.  Thank goodness she doesn't care.

Photo cred to my daughter Ally for holding this up so I could get good pictures

I do love the back, and the scrappy binding I made with all of the left overs from my super-over-zealous cutting for the front.

If you have other tutorials, or wisdom about half square rectangles (or anything else that I don't know that I don't know), I'm all ears!
SaveSave