My lovely friend came over this weekend to give moral support for the first cut of the fabric, something that has been scaring me for weeks! I had to wash and dry the fabric before cutting to make sure it doesn’t shrink in a warped way when it is in the quilt.
Careful fabric cutting is very important to have a beautiful quilt. Here is a video which demonstrates the techniques for beginners which I found helpful. It also shows how to measure pieces, which is not as easy as it might seem!
One problem with the pattern: I can cut the curved yellow pieces, although it takes a long time, but sewing them together is almost impossible! My experienced friend said that even she would not attempt to sew the curved pieces together. The problem is that you have to sew together the curved yellow and its corresponding white outside curve to complete the square, right sides together, but the curved edges don’t match up at all! So we did a sneaky redesign, making each curved yellow into a triangle, which will make it possible to cut and sew more quickly and easily for a beginner like me!
Since I am making 6 large blocks to sew together(half of the pattern), I calculated that I need 24 of these yellow squares. I also need 24 white squares, plus 16 more of the same size for the corners of the blocks, in addition to the strips of white to join the blocks together and a which square for inside each block…phew!