Update on my Mercantile top

I did get the middle of the top finished a couple of days ago. Let me share with you the steps.

Once I had the blocks all made, I had to

draw the circles on the interfacing and

then sew them on the pieced block.

I also then arranged the backings in the order in which I thought would be good.

Even though this is what I laid out, I always manage to turn some of them at times even though I try not to!

Eventually I turned the circles inside out and pressed them.

Then I sewed (appliqued) all the circles onto the backings. Apparently I forgot to take pictures.

Then I sewed them together to form the top.

I did forget to trim down the squares before sewing the blocks together, so my top is a tad bit bigger than it is supposed to be. My bad.

I am having to fiddle with the outer borders because of it, however.

So, I am currently working on the outer border blocks.

So far I am very happy with what I’ve done. If I do get all finished and I hate the final quilt because I didn’t trim the blocks to 14.5”, I will go back and trim down the blocks.

Between the last sentence and this one I’ve been thinking…

I’ve realized I could trim them down without actually taking them apart - rather, just cutting them down as I can lay the ruler over each block and just trim inside the sewing lines. I’m still thinking about it. In the meantime I am continuing to make the outer pieced border blocks. I have to do that regardless if I decide to trim down.

Maybe I will.

By the next update, maybe I will have done that - it is going to depend on how it is looking as I work on it. However, I really do like the top as it is now. I like the extra half inch or so that is there. Once I lay it all out on the floor I will have to make a final decision before I sew those border blocks on. Here is the final design as it is going to be. The arrows point to the outer border blocks.

Obviously I have had to add an extra inner border around the blocks so that I will be able to have the extra 4” for another block on the sides. Right now the pattern is written with 19 blocks, I think. I would need 20. My other option would have been to make my red strip 2.5” wide but then I’m afraid it would be OVERPOWERING so I decided not to do that - no matter what, I think I want my red border to be thin. It’s already pretty attention getting.

I still have a few of these outer blocks to do. I do think I could cut apart those blocks and restitch them in a few hours. I may do that. As I sit here at my computer, the idea is becoming less egregious to me. You will know, hopefully, in a week, what I decided to do.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Becky Petersen4 Comments