Q*bert Quilt, Failure, Update 4.5

After finishing the black background on the right side, I had a nice post all set up explaining my convoluted, but seemingly working, method of attaching the pieces. After putting on the left side over the weekend - I've admitted my failure. I promised myself this blog was for the good, bad, and ugly. In my case, that often includes failures and abandoned projects. However, for this project, I'm determined to make is work; no abandonment rather a do-over. Yeah, I'm having to toss about 10 hours of work and about $30 in fabric, but I'm not tossing the experience and knowledge gained. I have a much better idea of what I'm getting into now, and feel like I can do a much better job even if I have to make concessions to my original plan.

Here's is where it stands:

The problems:

1. The sides went on with a baste, test, baste, test, finish method. Some of the corners look fantastic, some of the corners leave a lot to be desired. While I think overall the corners are not a deal breaker, they add to my decision to scrap it.

Left side: should have removed and put back seams, Right side: A pretty good looking corner.

2. The bias cut rhombus have too much stretch in them. All of the handling to all the sides warped them and I've ended up with something far from square. You can really see it at the top where the middle of the black is very high and the two sides sink down about an inch each. It might be fixable with creative seams, but my nice horizontal lines in the black background have quickly become very slanted. I'm also concerned that the stretch will continue before I can quilt it leading to further distortion.

3. The SIZE! I believe I mentioned before that it had grown a bit bigger than I wanted it. I completed the math and stealing a few inches from the sides and top, it will finish up at around 55"x76" one inch over a full size quilt. Not what I was going for at all. I don't have nearly enough black fabric and the size will require lots of long cuts, which I really don't like to do.

The fixes:

The size fix is pretty easy. I'm going to do a few test sizes. I think I will start at 60% and work from there. I could go even lower, like say 25% and make a wall hanging rather than a blanket. I will probably make test prints of each and get an idea of what I will really have before I buy/cut any more fabric.

To deal with the stretch/background I think I have two choices. The first is to do all of the black as well as the colors with the rhombus shape. I think that would give really nice seams/edges and they will stretch equally. The down side to this method is the rhombus shaped seams would be in the black background as well as the board blocks.  Alternatively, I can make the rhombus game board and use a fusible web to "glue" it to a solid black piece of fabric essentially making it a giant applique. Downside here - it is a giant applique. I really think I would prefer the giant applique over the extended background. I really want to quilt in horizontal lines and don't want them to compete with the rhombus shape  more than I don't want the giant applique.


I've got a bit of calculating and decision making to do... stay tuned for Q*bert 2.0!