Day three Of my challenge to make a patchwork quilt in 7 days

pieces cut out for bird block

It has been a few days since I have done anything on my patchwork. I have been busy with other things, (work, family etc.) but I have not abandoned my challenge. Even though technically it could be classed as day 5 I am calling it day 3 as it is the third day working on my quilt.

I cut out all the pieces for the bird blocks, I think that I will use the buttons form my checked shirt as eyes.

I am hand sewing the pieces together using back stitch.

They say you learn from your mistakes, and boy have I learned a lot.

When working out the sizes of the pieces my logic went like this.

• I want the bird block to measure 6 inches by 6 inches,
•  The bird block is made up of 9 squares 3 squares by 3 squares
• Each square needs to be 2inches by 2 inches with a seam allowance of 1/4inch
• So I cut the squares 2 ½ inches, and then cut them in half and quarters diagonally to make the triangles.

Makes sense right? Wrong!!

I didn’t consider that the smaller triangles need to have seams too. I didn’t notice my mistake until I was sewing it together.

At first I thought that the block could be salvaged and using a border around the quilt .

But when I sewed the bottom row to the other rows I saw that it just looked wrong and the seams couldn’t match up. Although I will not use the block in my finished cushion cover I am not going to dismantle it I am going to keep it so that I can see my progress as a patchwork quilter.

Day 4 will be spent redoing what I did in day 3 but this time with the correct size pieces.