Week 2 (part 2): square-eyed

It didn't take long for the bundles of fabric, photographed in the previous pst, to be sliced and diced into 6 inch squares. Modern fabric butchery has moved on since I last saw yards of cloth bring expertly sliced with sharp scissors by the shop assistants in Harrogate; now the tool of choice is a pizza cutter, a razor sharp wheel on a stick, with a safety guard to prevent blind people from becoming sightless and fingerless people. It was very nifty and I look forward to wielding it when I get through my current stash of squares!

Here are some close-ups of the 5 different fabrics, including my handiwork stitching pairs of squares together. We do these random pairings and then will lay them all out in the pattern we want them; that'll be the point when we get to see what the quilt will really look like!

Over the weekend I learned about the mistakes I made in my stitching last week. I'd been making my stitches perpendicular to the edge of the fabric, rather than heal-to-toe running parallel up the edge. So I practiced that a little and at class I was much better, much straighter than the wonky straight line reported last week.

My stitches are still too far away from the tape that indicates the target stitching line, so I'll probably unpick all the stitching on these squares and re-do it. I may try not using the tape, since I don't feel it very well as I'm sewing, and I think I'd do better just aiming for the edge of the fabric, rather than trying to concentrate on getting close to the tape and not sewing over the tape... once again, I think it's one of those try it and see how it goes things!