Still learning how to quilt

I'm going to be brave and show you a close-up of this quilt,

because I learned something.

Bias is tricky.

I made these blocks to get better at mitered corners.

I framed black and white squares with a striped fabric

and I had fun seeing all the variety involved.

Even though I thought I was being careful,

I still made some mistakes in sewing and pressing the bias.

Most of the blocks bow out, and they're wider in the middle

than at the corners.

That made them hard to square up

and resulted in a wonky quilt.

 So I embraced the wonkiness and quilted in wiggly lines

and used a busy print for the border.

This photo shows the variety of stripes in the fabric.

 I cut the strips on the straight of grain.

Sometimes, despite dumbhead moves,

the quilting gods smile on you.

I had just enough fabric to cut four strips for binding.

Thanks to Val for rescuing me with the 10 inches she had left 

when I ran out.

Here's another learning curve quilt.

I'm putting in organic straight lines with a walking foot

on this log cabin quilt my mother made.

Now she's a very experienced quilter and these blocks are perfectly made

and the quilt is very square.

Yet she made a mistake too.  

She didn't put in enough pins when she basted it

and so the quilt had room to bubble between pins during the quilting.

(I make her a deal: I will quilt for her if she bastes the quilts)

By the time I was half done the quilting,

one corner was noticeably off-square.

So instead of finishing the quilting this weekend,

I ripped out about a quarter of the quilting

and now I will thoroughly baste the quilt

to get it square again.

Another learning curve moment:

Be careful with the seam ripper.

I may or my not have put a small gash or two in the fabric.

Oops.

What are you learning from your quilting these days?

I'm linking up with Beth today.