The Escalator block this month looked daunting. The precision cutting had me worried from the start. I'm not usually so good at those details -- especially, as I have learned during this quilt a long, when it comes to my background fabric. The pink batik seems to stretch in strange ways and the ruler never fails to slip teeny tiny bit from start to finish. Nevertheless, I dove in! Surely I could conquer this square.
In the end, I found the most time consuming bit to be the planning. Once I had the materials cut, I laid out the square and then just needed to be meticulous in my methods, so as not to mess up the pattern of the escalator itself. The sewing itself went rather easily for me!! I am convinced this is because of a trick I learned from a friend not long ago. I sew on an old Singer from the 1970s. While quite advanced for that decade, it lacks a lot of the aides that today's machines have, like a quarter inch foot to help with consistent seams. In fact, I determined that a quarter inch actually falls in the middle of the presser foot. I had tried painter's tape, but that was a huge nuisance as it was rarely straight and I had to remove it every time I needed to access the bobbin. Then, a friend suggested drawing the line on my machine with a permanent marker -- sheer genius!! Now I have a long enough guide line that I am actually able to sew consistent quarter inch seams. It's amazing to me what a difference this makes. I am convinced that is one reason this square turned out:
