Snowball Sandwich or Deana's Flowering Snowball

I love Stashbee. I have tried new blocks every month, and admire the skill of my fellow Bees. This month's block for Deana, Flowering Snowball Block looked fun and not too difficult. The photos posted so far look lovely, perfect as far as I can tell. My experience has been slightly less than perfect. I have sewn many curves over the years. I even have a nifty sewing machine foot called the  Curve Master. Here I am, demonstrating how easy it is, just "lift and separate, no pins needed."

There is a ¼" seam guide.

It really does work that well. The foot comes with different adapters so that it fits almost any sewing machine. So, I put together a block and found the center square a little challenging. Seam Ripper to the rescue. I wanted mine to look good, and ideally as nice as all of the other blocks on the blog. Then I measured my completed block and found it a little bit small, about 12 ¼" unfinished. Dangit. So, I looked at my seam allowances and tried again. Same problem. Double Dangit. I went back to the template pattern and checked that I had it correctly printed. Yes. So, I tried again, this time with a regular ¼" foot. Same result. By this time I was slightly annoyed. Trying over and over expecting different results. I surrender, and I am mailing these blocks. Maybe they can go on the back.

They have whimsy. See the little girl and her pet? 

The title refers to how I am feeling right now. Not toward anyone, just about time spent and results not to my liking. For those of you from warmer climates, a snowball sandwich is a veiled threat from a friend or sibling during a snowball fight.

And Deana's question, "Who got you hooked on quilting?"  My mom gets the first nod, for letting me experiment on her Singer Featherweight from as early as I can remember. She turned me loose, and that was the best way I learned. I read her McCall magazines, followed patterns, cut up scraps and sewed doll clothes, doll house accessories, and then my own clothes. At age 16, I ordered a kit from McCall's, an applique pillow pattern in Pennsylvania Dutch Style. This was 1972. The kit contained everything to applique and then quilt a round pillow, make the red piping, put a zipper in the side... I was hooked! My first quilting class was in Berkeley from Roberta Horton in 1979. Lucky me! I still love to take classes, and make it a goal to travel to a big name teacher each year. The last 3 years I have learned from Sue Spargo, Gwen Marston, and Karla Alexander. I wonder who it will be this year?