Trophy Buck Quilt Along—Week 4

We're Making Progress!

By the end of this week, you'll hopefully have another stack of templates since we're working on Panel 2 templates 28 through 49. If you're fairly new to foundation paper piecing, fingers crossed that you're getting more comfortable with the technique. And, if you're an old hand at it, I'm glad to have your company during these eleven weeks!

Fixing a Mistake

Just when you think everything is going along smoothly, you'll step back and find a piece that's the wrong fabric, a place where you didn't include enough fabric, or in this case missing completely.

There's no need to panic!

Last week, as my buck was hanging on the design wall, I realized I'd overlooked piece 11e. I could probably move on with few the wiser but this is something that would drive me nuts and cause me to lose sleep at night.  And, although it can be time consuming, it's not that difficult to fix.

First, I determined the easiest route to reverse engineer to the piece I needed to correct. (That's code for I got my seam ripper out and start removing stitches!) The arrows in the image below show the seams I needed to pick apart to open up enough space to add the missing piece.

I removed seam 1 about an inch past the nose bottom, seam 2 about an inch past the nose side, and seam 3 about an inch past where I needed to sew in the missing piece.

I then folded back the stitching line on piece 11e and positioned the missing fabric as normal.

Unfortunately, when I tried using my Add-A-Quarter ruler and rotary cutter I risked cutting into the rest of my quilt top, so I opted to cut the 1/4" seam with a small pair of scissors.

It was then time to hop over to the sewing machine and stitch the seam. I made certain to stitch at least 1/4" prior to and past my stitching line since my seam allowances had already been removed.

Next, I carefully aligned the seams I'd removed and stitched them back together. This time; however, I reversed the unpicking order by sewing the seam at the top of the nose, then the side of the nose, and then the bottom of the nose. At this point, I trimmed the excess fabric from the piece.

I wrapped it up with a good pressing and voila! No one will be the wiser and I'll be able to sleep like a baby!

The notes above are specific to my missing piece, but they should give you a bit of guidance to get back on track if you find that you need to fix a mistake. Good luck!

What Others Are Working On

I've seem some progress posts on social media and am crushing on the variety of fabrics being used! Unique color combinations and fantastic backgrounds are the current theme.

Teara from Lazy J Quilting (lazy_j_quilting) found this amazing fabric that looks like starlight.  So cool!

Photo courtesy of Lazy J Quilting

Now that you’ve spent some time getting to know your VIP (or would that be VIQ...Very Important Quilt?), have you named him? To be honest, I still haven't decided on a name.

Weekly Challenge

Let everyone know what you’ve dubbed your buck by sharing a progress pick using the hashtag #trophybuckquiltalong.