finished BIMB block # 3

My typical pattern for making these particular set of blocks is on day 1, I pull all the fabrics.  I pull the fabrics for the flower or flowers, leaves, stem, but also the background and sashing.  I iron as needed, and cut the background and sashing.

Then I pull out my stash of Pellon and the templates needed for the block and trace around the Pellon with a Frixion pen onto the Pellon.  I cut out around the drawn pieces and put the Pellon away, then sew it onto the right side of each piece of fabric as needed.

What I found was best for me was to set my stitch length to 1.8, make sure I have an open toe foot (not my quarter inch foot) and then the magic becomes when I sew around 3 times if it’s a circle, or at least twice if it’s an oval.  Even with a smaller stitch length, there are still minute spaces between the stitches and when I’m hand sewing those stick out like a sore thumb to me.  But if I sew right on top of where I sewed before but make sure to hit the in-between spots, manually adjusting my needle if I need to, I found it helps me a lot.

The second thing I do is I keep a straight pen handy when I’m stitching to do any minute tugging to get that extra sharp point out as I’m sewing.  I wear glasses but can’t get the prescription “just right” for the various activities that I’m engaged in.  I hand sew about 4-6 inches away and end up taking my glasses off which really makes those tiny variations pop out when I sew.

The good news is no one probably else will ever notice if I don’t catch it.

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