Passionate Quilter : Irish Mist Quilt

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

During the next few days I will be posting my journey with a quilt called Irish Mist. I started the quilt in January, and had issues with cutting instructions and a mistake I made. So I now call the quilt the "Re-Do" quilt. Ever start a quilt thinking, "ah this is a well written pattern and I should not have any issue" only to have the opposite outcome? The hiccups I encountered were minor but caused me major problems. I am sure there are other quilters out there who experience hiccups with pattern directions and just throw their hands up and walk away and the quilt goes in the UFO pile.

Half Square Triangles, Quarter Square Triangles, Square in a Square, and Flying Geese (FG) can drive a Quilter absolutely nuts. The Designer provided a very good technique in making Flying Geese - 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" (unfinished)

- To make 4 FG, the pattern called for 1 each 5 1/4" square and 4 each 2 7/8" squares. I followed the cutting instructions, made about 60 FG - only to find out when putting the blocks together that my points were cut off, or one was perfect the other not. UGH

Then there was the lovely mistake that I made. When I am making a quilt with lots of pieces, and specific color placement, I use a small label to make sure that I do not mix things up.....Well, so much for me. I accidentally picked up a wrong piece and really messed up 2 weeks of work! Lesson Learned. Read the pattern, study where the pieces go before any cutting is completed and if possible, make a practice block.

To remake the quilt, I had to order 4 yards of new background fabric (another cost and delay). The second go around I changed the cutting for the FG. For a nice finished FG at 2 1/2" x 4 1/2", I cut a 5 1/2" square of the background fabric and 4 each 3 1/8" squares. Even with all the hiccups, I do believe the pattern is well written and the quilt will be pretty when completed. Here is a picture of the fabrics I selected to make this quilt:

This is a picture of the center of the quilt as of 24 Jan 2014. It was not soon after that when I realized I had major problems. This quilt is now in the "never to be finished" bin!

Here are a few pictures of the problems with the points because of cutting the large square for the FG at 5 1/4" and the 2 7/8" squares.

By using the 5 1/2" and the 3 1/8" squares, this problem has been resolved. Whew!

Here are the steps for the Flying Geese using a 5 1/2" square and 4 each - 3 1/8" squares.

(Newbie having problems with adding pictures - will work on this later.)

I have now received the new background fabric and have re-cut all the background pieces and any of the other fabrics that needed to be re-cut. The new background (Hoffman Batik) has a little more blue in it that the original, but I like it better. The Quilt has 4 Large Star Blocks, 4 Small Star Blocks, and a Center Block, 4 Side panels, and lots of 2 1/2" squares for the corners of the quilt. Here are pictures of the "redo" of the quilt blocks that I have finished and the blocks that I will now start working on. I still have a lot of work to complete this quilt, but feel that it will be worth the effort put forth.

Center Star Block, Large Star Block and the Small Star Block.

Now on to making 4 blocks like this. I lay blocks with numerous piecies on a large Creative Grid ruler and stack them accordingly to prevent me from making "dumb" errors, although no guarantee on this one as I can still make boo boo's. ( Excuse the color changes in the pictures, I am trying to get the adjustments on the camera)