A lesson learned

What do you do when you have no option but to sew in the lounge and your boyfriend's TV viewing is interrupted by the whirling of your sewing machine? To the point that the subtitles go on? Well, I could just leave it but I try to be more considerate than that. 

I made a mat to put under my machine in the hope that it would dampen the noise. The jury is still out but at the very least it provides some extra protection to the table to. 

I had some left over batting that seemed the most logical thing to use. To make the mat look pretty I thought I could use up some my scraps and then quilt it. I would use the leftover fabric from my Laurel as the back and bias. A quick look around the internet led me to half square triangles. I had plans for nice, neat edges that matched up perfectly.

Turns out I was doomed from the beginning. I struggled to get the squares the right size, even with using a template. However, I didn't realise this until I had created the triangles! I thought about trying to straighten up the squares with my shears but caved in and bought a rotary cutter. I honestly don't know why I didn't buy one before. 

Sadly, the magic of the cutter didn't work. While I ended up with squares that were uniform in size, the centre seams were off, horrendously off in many cases. I could see just how off once I had stitched several of them together. I almost threw them away, to start again from scratch but realised that many of the imperfect matches were going to live underneath my machine. No one would see them! 

So I pushed on. The quilting was interesting as I needed to use the seam lines as a guide for the pattern but of course they weren't helpful in many places! If you squint, you can see how uneven the stitching lines are on the back.

Ah well, it isn't perfect but it will do. And I learnt a lesson: cutting accurately for patchwork at the beginning of the project really is essential for a nice finish. I must remember this for my next project as I'm planning Christmas presents now...