Kite Notes

I've learned all sorts of things piecing together my second kite quilt.  First, I am terrible at guessing yardage.  If I calculate it, I'm at least in the ballpark.  But if I'm just guessing - I need to add half a yard to a yard more than what I think it should take.  In this case, it was the background black I had bought specifically for this project.  Luckily, I had enough to do what I wanted.  But had I laid this out slightly different I would have been way short.

A 9¾" strip is only 9¼" along either edge when cut at 60°

Next, my notes from the last quilt said the strips between kites were 9¾" long.  That seemed odd, because remeasuring the kites, I came up with 9¼".  I recall having issues easing it all together, but I had attributed that to bulky crumb blocks.  Nope.  It had to do with the angles.  Somehow I didn't figure this out the first time through.  Each strip needs to be 9¼" long, either ending with a 90° or a 60° angle.  I had cut them all at 9¾" recognizing the angled ends needed more seam.  But I failed to cut two different types of sashing.

Ah.  Suddenly some of the commentary I received from the Topsfield Fair judges made a lot more sense.  In making all the strips too long and adjusting as I sewed, nothing quite lined up right.  Shattered Kites looks fine from a distance, but put a ruler anywhere near it and it's obvious!  This time I cut all of the pieces correctly (having a solid color was nice for the 60° ones, since there was no right or left pieces).  It all lined up and stitched together much more easily.  Yay!

Lastly, as I was trying to decide how to lay out this quilt, I made some other kite-based blocks.  They weren't what I wanted for this quilt, but I'm sewing them into the backing.  I particularly like this wonky square block.  It has only one partial seam, so it goes together quickly.  I may need to make a quilt with these!  (My backlog keeps growing bigger.)

Once I squared the quilt I decided it needed some borders and a scrappy flange binding.  I need to piece together the back and I've been doodling how I want to quilt it.  I'm pretty excited with how this is turning out!

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