These two items were my very first attempts at patchwork, done at the same time. The smaller one was made using pre-cut 5 inch squares which were given to me at our first ‘Coffee and Craft’ by the lady who kindly showed me what to do next. I cut 4-inch square pieces for the larger one before that first meeting, following instructions in a half-price children’s book, and trying to measure the squares and cut them out using scissors – stupidly, as it turned out! I sewed the squares into rows by hand, but then tried to sew the rows together using the sewing machine. Also not a great idea! I’m not great with a sewing machine anyway, and when you something’s not quite right it’s not so easy to pick out without making a mess, whereas when you do it by hand you can pick out a couple of stitches, realign it, and try again. This is in search of the best aligned squares I can manage, as it looks best when the corners align. As you can see looking close-up at the bigger one, sewing by machine right across all those corner joins was perhaps not the best idea. Though plenty of people do do it, so I could practise more.
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