Craft Mishap, a true confession

First the good craft news. After a day of cleaning the house I put in a movie and undid the eggs for the chicken. The brown yarn is a little bit lighter in color than the old but looks great. The parts need sewing together and then assembly. That's going to happen today. I need a great chicken on my mantle, complete with matching egg shell.

My ongoing red-work quilt project saw another block finished. I haven't counted how many blocks there are to do. I just pull out another one, all prepped, and stitch it up. I really like the designs and the final quilt is stunning. I've seen two so far that others have done.

Now for the true confession part of today. I was working hard on finishing up the final two paper pieced boat blocks and looking forward to the next step. I got out the pattern again and was checking the final size of the block. 8 1/2 inches. ??? My pieced blocks are 4 inches with lots of seam allowance. I looked at the pattern, read all of the instructions, looked again and again and duh.

It was me. My great idea of paper pieceing hadn't embraced the idea of the finished size. I should have printed the blocks at 200%. Now I have 6, count them 6 teeny, weeny blocks that look great, but... they are all too small.

It's time to back away from the sewing machine. I'll be making some chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting and green sprinkles for st. patricks day. Then I can come back and see if I have enough fabric to make the much larger blocks and/ or make up the chickens. I'm hopeful. It's only fabric, not brain surgery or rocket science.