Several years ago my Mom sent me a book of quilt patterns, all pretty and flower sort of things, with a note that said she loved the patterns but she had obviously gotten too old to quilt as she couldn't make any of the patterns work. No matter what, everytime she went to start a quilt, she got it cut out and then couldn't put it together, proof positive of incipient senility. You must understand, my Mom is an incredible seamstress. She only began quilting a few years before I did, but she never met a piece of fabric she couldn't turn into the fabricky Taj Mahal with a few minutes of time, a rusty needle and a couple yards of thread.
Soooooooooo, I have been just popping around, making a block here and a block there, trying to get myself into some sort of groove. And trying out blocks in the meantime. I picked up this book and picked the easiest pattern and made a block, intending to put some strips around it and send it to my Mom as a pillow cover.
It's an easy, easy pattern. Make a 4 x 4 block middle checkerboard and then sew strips around it. Some of the strips have additions, etc. But really, really easy. No triangles. Just squares and rectangles. I made the checkerboard and went to sew on the first set of 4" strips and it didn't work!. Strips were too short. I remeasured, recut strips, went back to sewing machine -- strips too short. Ahhhh, I obviously had messed up sewing the checkerboard. I took it apart, doublechecked my quarter inch foot and seam, resewed (sooooo carefully). Went to put on strips. Strips too short. So I screamed, threw away the checkerboard and started over. I carefully, carefully cut the strips, carefully sewed them together, checking every seam width along the way, finished with a perfect square and went to sew on the strips. Strips too short.
After more screaming I stopped and looked at the pattern and read and got out my calculator and discovered this: If you follow the directions perfectly and sew with the specified quarter inch seam, you end up with a 4.5 inch middle checkerboard square. The strips to sew on the outside edges are 4 inches long. I took the checkerboard, whacked off a careful 1/4th inch on each side and low and behold, my strips were perfect length. I put the square together. Beautiful. (I actually like this block, which looks best when made very scrappy.)
I have glanced at a couple other patterns. Just in a quick look I found another that has the same error in the first part of the block. If you carefully cut enough fabric for the whole quilt and sewed carefully (what my Mom does), there's no way in heck you could ever put those things together and have them come out perfect.
Here is what I've learned: nobody is perfect, editing is good, always make a block first before cutting out fabric for an entire quilt, when Mom says she can't make a pattern work there's probably something wrong with the pattern.
Cheers, Sunny