Birth of a Sampler
Posted By drsao on March 10, 2008
I finished my Birth of a Sampler assignment for March!
This is the quilt that I am making in a nine-month class that I am taking from Sherry Whitford at the Quilter’s Corner. Very clever – NINE MONTHS to give BIRTH to this sampler.
To tell you the truth, I feel like I have been in labor for the past three days. LOL 🙂
It wasn’t that it was so hard (actually it was a lot of fun!) but it involved several new and tedious steps …. and I think that I have held my breath for three days straight – know what I mean?
We used ROB PETE fusible material to cut out the half arcs – that was the first NEW THING that I learned about this month.
THIS STUFF IS AMAZING…..you stitch right on it – then cut out the shapes and pin it to the border – and then FUSE the shapes to the border material by pressing it with a hot iron…..and then we top – stitched those little arcs onto the border in such a way so that they fit just PEFECTLY on the 6 1/2 inch border that was then sewn onto our previously stitched masterpiece. I don’t think I have ever used so many pins in my life…..but it had to fit perfectly, and the edges had to match on all four sides!
BUT I DID IT. AMAZINGLY ENOUGH.
It looks pretty cute when added to the border made from “millions” of 1 1/2 inch squares! I can’t believe that I even did this!
The WHITE KNUCKLE PART was getting the corners to come out “at least semi-perfectly.”
And to top it all off – the four corners are mitered….another NEW thing that I learned.
I learned a lot this month – and I like the way that it looks.
In a future round I will be making 38 more of these arcs……..did I say 38? Yes I did.
I will survive…….maybe I will forget the white knuckle part……maybe I will even remember to breathe next time!
After all, we do forget the pain of child-BIRTH – I wonder if the same principle works for quilt-BIRTH!
This is what it looked like in February…
..and TA DA here it is after the March class! 
What lovely quilt! I’ve never heard of Rob Pete…is it the same as Steam a Seam or Heat Bond?