What's wrong with this picture?

- well, maybe not so much with the picture as with the pictured quilt, I suppose. Looks slightly curved, right? It was. Not just slightly, but extremely! Usually when sewing strips together I measure, mark with pins on both pieces, match up the pins and sew - to the amazement of some of my quilting friends: "you have a Pfaff with dual feed - it pulls top and bottom layers along at the same speed, so there will be no stretching anyway, so there's no need to pin", they kept telling me. Not true.

For once I decided to silence that inner voice whispering "pin, pin, pin" and just stitched my strips happily together, just trimming the bottom after I had finished stitching. When I put the finished (I thought) top on the floor for a photoshoot, I noticed it didn't look quite right, but I just thought I hadn't ironed it properly. When I picked it up and tried to fold it, however, I knew I was in trouble. One side was definitely longer than the other. Much longer. 8 inches longer. Yes, it's true! I had thought that there might be a slight pulling out of shape here, but 8 inches??? I measured again, with the same result. Back to the drawing board, or rather, get the seam ripper! Sigh. But it had to be done.

So that's what I was busy doing yesterday. I ripped all the long seams, measured each and every strip, recut, marked with pins, pinned to the previous strip and stitched again. Not the most exciting job I've ever had, but it had to be done! So here we are. Much happier now, and I have learned my lesson. I'll remember to listen to that inner voice in future. Measure twice, cut once, and all that... I do realize that my problem was not due to a faulty dual feed. But when sewing narrow strips like that together it is inevitable that they get pulled a bit too much before going under that dual feed. But, never mind (I wasn't quite so easygoing about it yesterday - you might have learned a few new words...), I'm back in the right lane again now, and can say yet again that it is going swimmingly...
I'll be back with auditions for the Sunflower Quilt tomorrow - I'll be grateful for some input on that one!