Every quilter has a stack.
Blocks cut, some of them sewn, sitting where you see them often enough to feel bad about them. Fallon of Sew Be It Quilts had one: a pile of Ohio star blocks in a Moda line called Cranberries and Cream that she had been saving for years. She loved those blocks. She still could not finish them, and the reason is the one most of us never say out loud. She did not know what the finished quilt was going to look like.
What she did about that, and how she builds the block, is all in her video. Her Ohio star is not quite the one you have seen before. She pieces the four corners instead of leaving them plain, and a square ring appears behind the star that nobody drew.
Two things in it are worth waiting for, and neither is about sewing.
The first is how she got the blocks off the shelf. She had them for years and could not finish them, because she had never decided how they would sit together. What she does about that costs almost nothing and takes ten minutes.
The second is right at the end. She shows the finished top to someone off camera and points at two blocks that are almost the same, sitting close together. She is ready to take them apart.
It looks fine, he tells her. Nobody is going to notice.
Did you notice, she asks.
No.
Are you lying?
No.
Keep that exchange somewhere. The quilt got finished because she let one imperfect thing stay imperfect.
Marbelia Fernandes
The Fabric Hut Co-Founder
P.S. If you have a stack like Fallon's, you do not need to finish it this week. Lay six of them out, take three photographs, and put your phone down. The decision tends to make itself by Thursday.
Block, quilt top and tutorial by Fallon of Sew Be It Quilts. Do watch it there.
