Hey Everyone, I’m putting the finishing touches on my newest pattern… The Tee Twin Set. And, I’m creating PDF download versions of the Tee and Women’s Tee. After printing out a test copy of the Women’s Tee, I started to put it together. …I love scotch tape, so I taped the pieces together like I really meant it. I quickly learned that this may not be the best way to do it. Actually it reminded me of the time I wanted to make a baby quilt for my daughter Anna. I was new to quilting but that didn’t stop me from picking out a challenging pattern… “baby’s blocks” Basically I spent all weekend making 3-dimensional blocks and sewing them into strips. When it came time to sew the strips together to make the quilt, they did not match up. It was one of my super “character builder” moments. I quickly realized that I would have to take out the seams and resew them a little more accurately to get the strips to fit together. This memory came to mind the minute I finished taping all of my rows together and tried to match up the rows to complete the pattern.
Each row appeared to go together perfectly… however, across 6 pages it worked out that one piece ended up being slightly skewed and didn’t match the pieces in the next row when I tried to put them together. Because I plastered the edges of the pieces with scotch tape it wasn’t a quick fix to take the tape off and fine tune the position of the piece that wasn’t lining up. …It wasn’t the pattern pieces that were off, it was the way I positioned them together.
So, I started over and realized that less is more. By using one short piece of tape at the center of each abutting seam I could easily make slight adjustments to get the rows to match together perfectly.
I decided to do a short video showing the easiest way I can think of to assemble a pdf pattern… If you think you you’re spending too much time trimming edges and using scotch tape, check this out!