Worth the Money

My grandmother used to say "A penny saved is a penny earned." 

We all know quilting is NOT an inexpensive sport.  With the tools, fabric, all the different gadgets, etc. Then there are all the wonderful patterns! 

Patterns is the one place I try to save.  

The process might look something like: 
First see a pattern. say, on Facebook. 
Second, I Google to see if there is a free version somewhere. 
If not, Third,  Fire up EQ8* and try to design my own.

 

That is exactly what I did with Two Of A Kind.

 

The above quilt was posted on Facebook and I just really, REALLY liked it  So, I googled the pattern thinking this might make a good leaders & enders quilt (for the record, it's not a good leaders and enders quilt...too much thinking.)  
I didn't find a free pattern so I went to Step Two: Designing it in EQ8. 

It was a good refresher exercise and I was pretty proud of myself that I was able to figure it out!  Printing the pattern and the cutting diagram; I opened my shoe box of 5 inch squares and did a little test run. 

EQ8 is a designing tool and while you can print the pattern and the cutting details, EQ8 does not print instructions on how to assemble a block.  And that is where I got stuck.....darn, darn, and double darn.

It all started out oh-so-good.....Sitting on the floor....assembling the pieces on the design board
... it was fun, like putting together a puzzle. 

Sewing the block, however, was a problem....

 

 

You can see once you sew the pieces together, the block with three seams is now smaller than then block with only two seams.

 

 

The EQ8 cutting directions did not show the sub-cut, it only showed the cross cut. But for the pattern to fit together, I figured out I needed to sub-cut some.

 

 

Well, it was a fun evening all the same.  I did get some EQ8 practice in and I touched fabric. 
Some evenings that's all you need.

Where to go from here  Sometimes buying the pattern is worth every penny.  But, I haven't decided if I like it enough to go back and figure out what I did wrong, or buy the pattern, or what.  Heaven knows I don't need another project. 

 
To be continued.....maybe.....

*EQ8:  Electric Quilt 8