My work contains many angled pieces. Sewing angled pieces together requires offsetting the ends to have the final seam line up properly. If your angle is a true 45 degrees, you place the tip of the piece one quarter inch above the straight edge and then sew. You will get a perfect seam. But most of my angles are rarely close to 45 degrees. The more acute the angle the more I need to offset the edge. (Acute angles are all angles less than 90 degrees.)
While working on my latest large composition I sewed a seam that was about 14 inches long. The full seam is pictured below. Look at the top muted green piece about the dark olive triangle. The left side is barely off, but the right side, where the muted green meets the dark gray it is off by about an inch.
Look at top muted green piece above the dark olive triangle.
Here are photos giving a closer look at the two ends of the seam. Many quilters who work improvisational will just trim down and keep going. On the left side of the seam I will lose only an 1/8 of an inch, but on the right side I will lose almost an inch on multiple pieces. When you work in large compositions like I do and almost every seam is angled, this significantly impacts the overall design. My large pieces have over 500 hundred seams. An inch here and an inch there quickly adds up!
Out of personal curiosity I photographed the ends. I wondered how much difference it would make if I fixed the side out by only 1/8” of an inch. Then I ripped out the seam. Repositioned the edges slightly and sewed it again. This time the edges lined up almost perfectly. Now I did iron the seam differently, but you can still see that I gained over 3/4” on the other side. While you may still not believe me that this makes a big difference in the overall composition, I did prove it to myself by documenting my process. I was assessing if it was worth the time to rip out and redo the seam. To be honest I was a bit surprised to see how big of a difference it did make. Final analysis, yes it was worth the time. And I apologize to any non-sewers who may feel I am down in the weeds.
But I also think that this has a broader application. During the child raising years, I often would not even go up to my studio to work if I could not be up there for at least 2 to 3 hours. (Looking back this was a ridiculous expectation.) Then I read about another artist who tracked her time in 15 minute segments. I wondered to myself what tasks could I accomplish in 15 minutes if I tried. I reconsidered my attitude toward time and my studio. So I started going up to work for these smaller segments of time. Guess what! This led to more time in the studio. On days where I once thought I did not have enough time to get anything done, I began to carve out an hour here and 30 minutes there. It may sound silly, but for me it was truly life changing. A little progress in a day is better than no progress.
I am starting to assess other areas of my life. Wondering what other small adjustments I could make to reap greater benefits. Specifically I am considering giving myself more boundaries around my cell phone usage. What seemingly small adjustments could you make?