The First Cut is the Deepest

I am compelled to clean the house by very few things. Impending guests is one of them. Apparently, fear of cutting my quilt blocks is another. Yesterday, after many loads of laundry, dusting, vacuuming, and rearranging my husband's sock drawer (really!) I could avoid it no longer. It was time to cut.

As Care suggested, I set myself up at a table where I had access to three sides of the cutting mat. The only table in the house big enough to hold this gargantuan mat is my sewing table. Piles of fabric and bags of trim seem to grow up around the table like barnacles, so I didn't clear the space so much as I excavated it. But here's the thing: Care is right. You do want to be able to get to three sides of the mat. Some cuts are more comfortable from the front; others are easier to do from the sides. Oh, and the huge mat? Lovely.

Things proceeded rather smoothly. I set up the laptop with Care's tutorial and followed along. I felt reassured having here there on top of my washing machine!

Questions for Care: You say not to iron the fold. Why is that? On some of the pieces, the fold was sort of "loose" (for lack of a better word) which made lining it up on the mat sort of difficult. Will terrible things befall me if I iron the fold?

Also, is it okay that I ended up with a little of the selvedge on one of my blocks? Will it be hidden in a seam anyway?

Here's another surprise I found: Ugly marker marking scrawled on the reverse side of one of my fabrics. Will we be using every single block we cut? Because this shows through on the other side. If I can't get it out, I will have to buy a little more fabric.

I'd give the girl who cut my fabrics at Jo-Ann's a B-. For the most part, I was able to squeeze the cuts I needed out of the pieces, but a few were VERY close, and the zebra print was short.

I made a bad cut myself. Towards the end, I got cocky and ignored Care's instructions. I wasn't cutting away from my body, and I didn't have the ruler pinned down with my forearm, and I made a bad cut. Lesson learned: LISTEN TO CARE!

Eeee! Look how cute! You may notice I didn't not get hung up on making sure the pattern of my muse fabric was straight. Will I regret that? Should I redo it, or will it all blend in once we have it sewn together and chopped up and sewn back together?

And finally...these were the last two fabrics picked! I can't believe how many of you guessed! Why did you pick these? OMG, they don't go, do they? Do I need to pick different ones? I'm just kidding, I'm happy with them. :) I did a random drawing of the names who guessed correctly, and the winner is...2WeeMonsters! Send me your address, 2Wee, and I'll ship a little something off soon. :)