Sunday, April 17, 2011

Jane Austen quilt, part 5 - oops.

Happily, I've pinned all 464 diamonds to my design wall around the place-holding center medallion.

I've begun sewing the sashing fabric to the diamonds, starting in the top right corner. 

Looks pretty spiffy so far, huh?  I kinda like it. :-)



And then, I got to thinking.  This center section is big.  Big enough to cover the top of a queen sized mattress ... roughly 60"x80". 

The sashing is narrow; it'll finish at 7/8" wide. 

I have about 2-1/2 yards of sashing fabric.  Surely, that is enough to cut all the sashing I need?

But wait!  It would be simply HORRIBLE if I got 75% of the way through the top only to run out of sashing fabric! Truly, a fate worse than death!  Since I have NO idea when or where I got this fabric, it's not like I can run right out and buy additional amounts.

I figured it would behoove me to actually calculate how much sashing fabric I had, in terms of linear inches versus how much I really needed.  So, with my trusty tape measure in hand, I began to measure how long the various sashing pieces were.  Luckily, the length of the short strips between the diamonds was a constant amount and the length of the long diagonal pieces increased by a constant amount. 

If my figures were correct, I was going to run out of sashing fabric before the top was done.  Holy moley .. it's a good thing I was cautious ... or suspicious.

Sadly, this does mean that I will need to rip out the small corner that has been done .... but much better only that than nearly an entire top!  I'll go out shopping tomorrow, cross my fingers and see if I can find a suitable substitute. 

4 comments:

  1. )h yeah that would have been a bummer to run short at the end! I have done that when I bought fabric without a plan& then decided on a design! It's hard to know how much to buy when I fall in lust for a fabric,LOL.
    You might try googling the fabric name etc & see if you get any hits.

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  2. Roslyn ... sadly, it's one of those fabrics that has absolutely NO identification on the selvage. I can't even remember when I obtained the original sashing fabric ... or even IF I had bought it!

    Happily, though, a replacement sashing fabric has been acquired.

    Sadly, whilst waiting for approval of the replacement sashing, I started on a "quickie" project because I just could NOT stand being idle. ::sigh:: Now I need/want to finish the "quickie" top before continuing with Jane Austen. :-)

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  3. The colors are coming together so beautifully. And glad you found out about the sashing issue before hand. That could have been heart breaking to find out after a lot of work had gone into it.

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  4. Kayleigh ... absolutely. I would have been soooooooooooooooooooo annoyed to have discovered the shortage of fabric that late in the game.

    Fortunately, Dear Daughter has approved of a replacement sashing fabric; I have finished all my procrastination activities, so work on Jane Austen re-commences. :-)

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