Friday Round-up - May 1, 2020

Well, damn.

The best-laid quarantine plans are only as good as the plans of the few people with whom one comes into contact.  The Husband and I have been limiting our exposure to people who we MUST see.  He has 28 co-workers, some of whom are working from home.  Of the handful of people who are coming to work, one of them went to a birthday party last weekend.  Yesterday, that person got a call from the health department informing her that one of the party guests had tested positive for COVID-19.  She was told to get tested, and she immediately did so.  The results probably won't be available until Monday.  Meanwhile, we bite our nails, hoping the co-worker did not catch the virus. 

This has been a frustrating week.

I have been working on The Granddaughter's quilt.  Until yesterday, I felt pretty good about it.  The quilt top will require 30 log cabin blocks and 20+ striped square blocks.  I finished the 30th log cabin block Wednesday afternoon.  When I laid them out on my sewing table, I discovered that, despite very careful attention to every step of the process, the 30 blocks were wildly inconsistent in size. They are supposed to be 8.75" square.  Some are 8.75" square, some are 9" x 9" square, and some are 9" x 9.5".  How the f* did this happen?  I was so careful!

Google provided the answer.

These blocks are assembled from 1" strips of fabric that I cut horizontally across the grain.  I should have cut the strips vertically, as fabric tends to stretch less on the vertical grain (I guess that would be called the "warp").  I knew that bias-cut fabric was stretchy, but I did not know that the horizontal weave stretches more than the vertical warp.  That mistake won't happen again. 

Meanwhile, what do I do?  Do I remake all 30 blocks?  I would have to get more fabric, even if I wanted to tackle that chore.  Do I cut the oversized blocks down to the correct size?  I guess I can, but they won't look the same.  Does that matter?  I don't know, since this design is meant to be a bit visually confusing, anyway. 

Maybe, like Scarlett O'Hara, I should think about this another day, when I am not so frustrated. 

Lord knows when that will be!