UUGGHH! The 'Hummer Storm' headache...

Well I did it! I made one of the quilts that I saw and really wanted to make!!! It is a paper pieced variation the Snails Trail. Of course I had to be difficult and decided to make it foundation pieced instead... After looking online for a day, I didn't find a real pattern for foundation piecing there so I printed out the original one that I saw and did all the measuring and math and figuring out each piece that needed to be cut...

I was WRONG!!! Apparently when you measure the triangles you don't measure the right angle side and add a 1/4" to each one for the size of the triangle. So I had to cut more... I trimmed all my 4-patch pieces to make the already cut triangles work. That brought the size down from 6 1/2 inches to 5 inches... Next was to figure what sizes the other 2 blocks needed to be.



All finished!!! With only 26 blocks left over... Wait how did I get 26 extra blocks? I of course again didn't pay attention to the math and since I needed 40 of the diamond block I figured I needed 40 of the snail block.

Well the top is pretty...

Now for the quilting! Well with this pattern there are lots of small seams over each other and they all thick so I did something I have done only 4 other times and machine quilt this quilt. I spray basted then pin basted then put the feed-dog downs and the darning foot on and started. Only one major mishap was the sewing needle breaking in a basting pin. OK my thread broke so many times it took me twice as long as it should have but the end result was wonderful!!!


As I was sewing this quilt all I could think about was how awful it was to sew. As I was putting all the blocks together for the top I was thinking about how I would do it different next time. As I was quilting I was thinking, "boy quilting is like childbirth. You soon forget the agony of it and want to do it all over again!" So it's off to the next quilt!

**** update on the hummer storm*** it received a 3rd place ribbon in the 2013 county fair. Not to shabby for a hand quilter quilting with a machine...