When I was little, I started to make a quilt out of scraps of fabric from my nan's dress making sample books. The fabric was horrible, my sewing was disastrous - I was only about 9 - and the paper templates were not the conventional hexagon shape due to my lack of ability to draw a straight line. Needless to say I never finished the quilt. It got to about 2 foot square and then I gave up. So why I thought making a patchwork pencil case was a good idea, I will never know. All I know is that I'd wanted to do it for a few days so this weekend I started it, and it is another project I will never finish. It started off ok. I found some Ballerina Print fabric which I bought on one of my mad fabric buying sprees from Lady Sew and Sew about a month ago - while I haven't bought new cloths since Christmas, I have a lovely stock of fabric, most of which is still waiting to be used - and paired it with a plain pink cotton. Most of my patterns can be found on left over bits of paper like the one above. The folder in my cupboard is stuffed full of them - waiting to be typed up, which is probably never going to happen - most of which have a corner cut out of them where I've printed off an address label. Logic told me I should use 18 squares to make each side of the pencil case - 3 squares high by 6 squares wide. Logic probably should have told me that 2.5" squares was a ridiculous size to use when I've never machine sewn a patchwork before but unfortunately it was too caught up on the amazing idea about using 18 x 2.5" squares to tell me this. Several internet tutorials later, I ended up with 4 strips of fabric. If you're wondering why it's 4 strips of fabric then I'm afraid I can't help you. I later found out that this was not a good idea when attempting to make a patchwork 3 squares high. After sewing two strips together, realising I had no idea what to do with the third, unpicking lots of bits, ironing and re-ironing and generally making a mess, I ended up with something vaguely resembling a patchwork. The joins in the fabric were almost straight but who knows what happened to the rest of it. And who knew that pink fabric would stretch so badly? Most of my sewing is done using this industrial machine and then finished off with the over locker for a nice clean finish, although the appliqued parts of some designs are done on a smaller electric machine in the house. This picture showed my first of many attempts to sew the top row of squares to the two lower rows. And here's the finished project. Maybe once it's had a good iron and I've had a little more practice it would be ok but we're never going to find out because I'm never attempting patchwork again. Though, never say never. In a few years I may have forgotten this disaster and will attempt it again.
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