In my push to get the two quilts done for last weekend, I’ve let my twin girl quilts fall back on the list. Time to move them to the top again.

8″ finished “blooms”

I’m using the Tallahassee paper piecing block, but I’ve resized it significantly. On Quilter’s Cache the pattern is for four blooms together to measure 12″ or 8″ finished. I wanted a much larger scale design with a less dense pattern so I pulled it into illustrator and resized it so that a single bloom would be 10″ finished.

I then started cutting my background pieces, only to find that my unscientific method of figuring out how big they should be didn’t work and all my backgrounds were too small.

10.5″ unfinished – background pieces were too small, so I had to rip everything out and start again at a smaller size.

So I had to do some ripping out, and make some test blocks in different sizes to see what my cuts would work for. It turns out I can just make them work for 8″ finished blocks. They are still a bit small, but by changing the piecing order I think I am able to make it work.

As a result, I have scope creep. I was only going to make 40 10″ blocks. Now I have to make 60 8″ blocks for a finished size of 40″x50″. The lesson here is: measure twice, cut once. And make a test block, or four. Don’t just assume it will work and then go cutting up all your fabric.

Stack of about 60 fabric “centers” for the “blooms”.

Luckily I still have some Kona Navy so I can cut more backgrounds when I get to that point.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced!