Last three blocks and a chat with Trine Bakke

It got pretty late last night, I felt I was on a roll after the two previous blocks, and with only three blocks to go I put my foot on the pedal of my sewing machine:

Sorry the pic is so yellow - bad lamp light late at night. The rose block is lacking the smallest circle in the center, but I'm thinking of putting a cute little button there. As you can see I swapped the basket block block for a different one - this one having an appliqué handle rather than the little HSTs. The abstract geometrical appliqué ended up a bit larger than on the original quilt - that's what you get from drawing free hand ;o)

I also had an e-mail chat with the designer of the"Svennebrevet" quilt, Trine Bakke from Lappemakeriet, regarding the patterns. She had heard some of us had some frustrations, so she thought she'd clear up a few things (that's what I call customer service! Wow!). Knowing there are others out in blogland suffering from some of the same frustrations as me, this is a summary of what we talked about:

Why centimeters and not inch?

Judging by comments from beginners coming to the shop, inch is scary. Especially if the newbie is going to learn on their own, i.e. not living somewhere they can easily sign up for a class where they immediately are presented to inch measurements. The magazine class is first and foremost directed to the quilters who can’t attend an actual class, and Trine hopes those who don’t have personal support can be inspired and learn from the magazine pattern (I'm still not convinced it is good to teach centimeters to beginners knowing the bulk of patterns out there are in inch, but that is the reason for their decision).

Trine had drafted the blocks full size so those wishing to could measure for themselves and chose whether to use cm or inch, unfortunately the magazine opted against printing the blocks full figure. She says it is sometimes frustrating the editors making changes and cutting back on illustrations and explanations, but she is still confident beginner quilters will learn what they need to make the quilt from what the magazine has printed.

Block size and weird fractions

The original BOM from the shop had 9” blocks, the blocks in the magazine finish at 20 centimeters (just shy of 8"), so the patterns are not interchangeable. The blocks are constructed over grids of 2,4,5 and 7 units so no matter what there would be some weird fractions in some blocks, the change in size was to make the fractions less weird. So those who started out doing the first blocks in 9” size has to bare in mind that changing to centimeters for the more complex blocks will end up with two different sizes.

Why a whole centimeter seam allowance?

1 cm is marked on the needle plate on most sewing machines and easy to line up fabric to. I took another look at my Bernina – it has markings every 0.5 cm, but it also has 1/4” inch markings, so… And let me tell you, I'm not giving up my quarter inch presser foot for anything! I looove that little gadget!

At the end of our chat she suggested I could post my inch measurements on my blog so those who have trouble could check back here. Now, my notes are for the 9" finished size and they are a shambles! It would take a lot of time to type them up to make any kind of sense. However if someone reading this are having trouble, I'm happy to lend support and help with the math - chances are you are running into the same problems I did ;o)

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida