I can't believe I did that!!!

Last Thursday I finished the Halloween table topper at our quilting day at Bethel. BUT when I pressed it, it was evident that there is a major wrinkle in the edge. See on the right hand side there? The edge is just too much bigger than the center. I don't know what I'm going to do about this!

One solution would be to take out the outer half of the seam between each of the eight sections, and resew it, removing a slight bit of fabric from each section. I think I'll take it to the "Pieceful Stitchers" meeting next week Tuesday and see if anyone has a suggestion. That's the group that learned this technique last week. Other than the wrinkle (which is a major problem) it turned out well. The fabrics look great together.

At the Bethel quilting day I cut the first of the Christmas tree skirts, and began piecing the sections together. When the second cut was finished, I realized that the "grout" was not a full inch. That was astounding, as I had cut very carefully. When I checked the ruler I had used, the disheartening discovery was: an inch on that quilting ruler is NOT a full inch. What to do? I opted to remove all the "grout" and cut new grout.

Actually, that was a good idea, because the black "grout" didn't do much for the Christmas fabrics. I have some leftover gold lame from D.D.#2's wedding dress, and wanted to try that as a "grout" for the tree skirts. So this morning, after I had reorganized a few areas of my fabric closet (in order to fit in the 5 meters of Warm and Natural that I bought at the 40% off sale), I sat down and removed all the black "grout."

After dinner I got busy, cutting some gold "grout" and sewing the sections back together. The lame really tends to fray, so it was a delicate operation. I finished by 4 o'clock, and laid the sections out on the dining

room table just for a look. I even took a picture to share the way it looks now. Also decided I had to shift the sections so that reds went next to greens, and vice versa. How come I didn't see my error at this point? Can you spot it? Each of the sections should have four different fabrics. I had neglected to do the switch between cuts.

Taking all the sections, carefully restored to the proper order, 1 through 8, back to the cutting board, I measured and carefully made the third cut. It was at that point that the light dawned. OOOH NOOO!!! What am I going to do about this now? If the "grout" were cotton, I'd probably pick out some seams again, but the lame won't survive that much handling. So I guess I'll just carry on, and use this tree skirt for ourselves, and make a better one for the D.D.'s.

And I guess for supper I'll have a little "humble pie"!!!