3- cont'd, page 2:
Grandmother's Flower Garden
I like to carry a QuiltPati in my purse when I go to the fabric store. It is amazing what creative ideas float through my mind when I hold the little plastic QuiltPati over some fabric on a bolt or in the remnants bin.
And I've learned to carry a QuiltPati and cutting pattern to any gathering of friends where we can exchange fabric scraps with each other. The cutting pattern helps me decide whether a scrap of fabric is large enough to be useful in a QuiltPati project. Swapping scraps with friends is a great way to build a diversified stash!
Sewing the fabric onto the QuiltPati was easy to learn, and didn't take long to see progress as my hands became more adept at following the instructions.
Pin QuiltPati in center of pre-cut fabric. Fold down right side of cocrner, then fold the left side over.. The proper sequence for a right-handed person is to fold down the Right side at a corner, then fold down the Left side over the top of it, and put in two "back stitches" to hold the "overlap" in place. Also, because I'm right-handed, that back-stitch went in from right to left like a whip stitch. If you're a leftie, just reverse the order of the handing instructions found here..
Next was to turn the QuiltPati clockwise in my hand, and fold down the right side of the next corner, then the left side over it, and a couple backstitches to hold it. Turn clockwise again and repeat the action at each corner until the whole QuiltPati has been covered.
Once I got the hang of sewing the fabric onto the QuiltPati forms, I started accumulating a stack of them to start putting my Grandmother's Flower Garden together.
However I did make three errors right in the beginning that we can all learn from.
First, I didn't consult my design pattern to see what order of fabric units were needed. I was too busy focusing on the "fold and backstitch" process to realize I'd used a dozen of my plastic forms making flower centers, and had used none of the colors needed to sew anything together.
So the lesson is - - - pick out the cut fabric shapes to either start at one corner and work across the pattern in a diagonal path, or to start at one corner and work one row at a time at least for some distance.
With the proper fabric pieces picked out, the QuiltPati forms that you cover with them will go together. In my case (at least after I figured out what I'd done wrong), it was easy to start at a corner and work diagonal just to complete the border and one flower. Then I tackled the next flower on that row, and then the next, etc., until I reached the end of that row
