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Monday, January 5

Delectable Mountains Mini Border - a failed attempt

Delectable Mountains is one of my favorite quilt blocks.  Have you ever seen Bonnie Hunter’s Scrappy Mountain Majesties?  I sure do love that quilt! Bonnie has excellent instructions on how to make it by slicing up half square triangles.  She also gives a few intriguing layouts for the blocks.  

A very sweet friend gifted me with a jelly roll of Paisley Park by Kansas Troubles.  I decided I wanted to use it to make a border and frame a beautiful cross stitch piece that was waiting for the perfect fabrics.  To do this I planned to make Delectable Mountains blocks in miniature.  

For my first attempt at a mini DM block, I did it the usual way: slicing up HSTs, rearranging them and sewing them back together.  Uh Oh!  Trouble.

My 1st failed attempt
  
 
Ugh!  Here is the thing:  No matter how careful I am, I'm no Sally Collins, aka the Queen of Precision Piecing.  On a miniature quilt block, my small mistakes show up a whole lot more.  You can see how wonky my block is: It tilts to the left, the strips don't stay the same width and those points are not 1/4" away from the edge.  Plus the size is too tall for my project.  I wanted smaller mountains.  Maybe I want Delectable Foothills.






BOING!!!
Almost another inch long when stretched.
To make matters worse, I cut out my HSTs from two jelly roll strips, sewn together lengthwise.  This gave me an HST cut on the bias grain.  Well, I know not to do that again - my little block has a lot of stretch.  There would be Dueling Accordions playing in those mountains. Paddle faster Burt!       

At this point, I decided to paper piece these blocks.  As far as I could tell, after googling like crazy, paper piecing is not a normal way to sew a Delectable Mountains quilt block. At least, I could not find a pattern.  So, I puzzled over it and finally figured it out.  I made my own paper piecing patterns for miniature Delectable Mountains.  I'm pretty excited about it because it worked out really well!  Sometime before the end of the week I hope to get the project finished and will soon be posting the patterns with a tutorial.    

I hope you all come back soon to see it!
Lara


17 comments:

  1. I know you must've been soooo frustrated when your first block didn't come out as accurately as you wanted it to be. But I am not at all surprised that you "climbed over that li'l old mountain top and conquered it!! " I can't wait to see your Delectable Foothills paper pieced pattern! That is a beautiful jelly roll. That's going to make your feature cross stitch really special!
    Susie

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  2. "Paddle faster, Burt!" Bahaha! That so cracked me up! Delectable foothills . . . another good one!! I like the quote someone said about failures only being failures if they kept you from trying again. So there ya' go!! :)

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  3. Lara, I love what you are doing with your border! You do such wonderful work I know it's going to turn out great. I love that pattern too. I am glad you are much smarter than I am that you could make your own pattern for it. Please let us see the results.

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  4. Even your "fail" looks fabulous from here! I think paper-piecing will fix this for you, though - can't wait to see the final project.

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  5. I had some bowing in a strip block too and figured it was the order of sewing the strips together - I then realised I needed a foundation to hold it in place like scrappy string blocks. Live and learn!

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    1. Ah - a foundation! Light bulb moment for me too - Thanks Ruth!

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  6. Great idea to paper piece your "foothills".... I would not have thought of that! The fabrics your are using are gorgeous. Looking forward to seeing your cross stitch with this border.

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  7. I agree with Amy even your "fail" looks awesome.
    You are so resourceful. I can't wait to see your finished project.

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  8. Paper-piecing to the rescue! I think you were being too hard on yourself as far as precision goes. Fabric is very pliable ;-) However, I know from experience, minis demand incredible precision, so you are very smart to think of paper-piecing, but then to actually figure out how, and THEN to be sharing it--! Wonderful. I love combining stitching and quilting. Looking forward to seeing this.

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  9. Lara, this block certainly looks tricky! I'll stay tuned to see your tutorial. I would never try to make such a block without clear instructions. Those mountains would look great with my paper-pieced houses. I've been wondering what to do with them and I think you gave me the perfect idea. :-)

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  10. I'm glad you found a way to tackle this project ;) Well done!

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  11. What a great idea to paper piece this block! I think I have one or two of those blocks in my orphan box too :)

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  12. "Delectable Foothills" hehe :D The idea of mini mountains really tickles my fancy.

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  13. It can be so frustrating when you try something that doesn't work out, but credit to you for sticking with it and figuring out a solution!

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  14. It's good to know I'm not the only one who has fails! Looking forward to seeing what you figured out!

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  15. I am not seeing too much mistake! I have never worked with little pieces yet. I did try paper piecing the other day. On about a simple block as you could get. 3 pieces. And I screwed up the 3rd piece, it went the opposite way it was supposed to! I was so careful, but obviously not enough lol. I will try again because paper piecing makes the most beautiful quilts. Paisley Park is wonderful isn't it? ;)

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  16. Oh my are those itsy bitsy blocks!! So adorable though - and I read forward and found the pattern. What a great little quilt!

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