When everything goes wrong..
The short version:
When everything goes wrong... complain and then go make something else.
The long version:
Unfortunately, I'm talking about the Swoon quilt.
Yes, that swoon quilt. It's a good one, I know. Or at least I thought it was going well until...
** I finished basting and realized that I had made the backing slightly too small.
** I hadn't realized this before because I had not trimmed the backing edges evenly. So, if you measured along the longer side, it was big enough. Bad Rachel.
** In hopes of correcting the small bit of overhang, I moved the quilt top after spray basting. I-yi-yi. Sticky mess. It's pretty hard to recenter a sticky quilt top onto a sticky batting.
** I failed.
** Resigned to fixing the small overhang by enlarging the quilt back, I set off to quilt. But, behold, there were puckers.
** Because I tried to move the spray basted top.
** Did I mention that this was a bad idea?
** Gritting my teeth I pushed through the puckers. I prodded, I pulled, I smoothed and coddled.
** I also decided that a spiral quilt design was far too ambitious on this 80" square quilt in my tiny, tiny sewing machine.
** Which was possibly shrinking.
** And when I finished quilting (phew!), I resolved to restore my affections for the quilt by making my lovely readers a step-by-step binding tutorial as I finished. You know for my binding with the zigzag finish? That finish that had turned out perfectly on the last two quilts I've made?
** The Swoon binding was not perfect.
** I was not shocked.
** I confess I also thought bad thoughts about my book while I bound that quilt. We're all capable of bad thoughts.
** The pictures I took (at night, tsk, tsk) of the Swoon binding also turned out pants. I just deleted them all moments ago.
But, it gets better! Because, I then left the finished quilt in a crumpled mound on my table, like so. I left it there until the following night, when I set it aside with a "hmph" kind of sound. "I finished you. You can't hurt me anymore!" And then I made stars.
And the stars were so nice. They made me smile.
And then, and THEN....
Today I washed and dried the Swoon quilt, and spread it on my bed just to see. And what I saw wasn't the terribly, awful I saw before, but instead something crinkly and nice. I could even see the good done there, for this quilt has been made to bless someone and a blessing it will be indeed.
Tomorrow I'll have lots more pictures of the finished quilt. Today I just wanted to clear the air about the terrible awful part. And, to remind you to always, always make something else!
When everything goes wrong... complain and then go make something else.
The long version:
Unfortunately, I'm talking about the Swoon quilt.
Yes, that swoon quilt. It's a good one, I know. Or at least I thought it was going well until...
** I finished basting and realized that I had made the backing slightly too small.
** I hadn't realized this before because I had not trimmed the backing edges evenly. So, if you measured along the longer side, it was big enough. Bad Rachel.
** In hopes of correcting the small bit of overhang, I moved the quilt top after spray basting. I-yi-yi. Sticky mess. It's pretty hard to recenter a sticky quilt top onto a sticky batting.
** I failed.
** Resigned to fixing the small overhang by enlarging the quilt back, I set off to quilt. But, behold, there were puckers.
** Because I tried to move the spray basted top.
** Did I mention that this was a bad idea?
** Gritting my teeth I pushed through the puckers. I prodded, I pulled, I smoothed and coddled.
** I also decided that a spiral quilt design was far too ambitious on this 80" square quilt in my tiny, tiny sewing machine.
** Which was possibly shrinking.
** And when I finished quilting (phew!), I resolved to restore my affections for the quilt by making my lovely readers a step-by-step binding tutorial as I finished. You know for my binding with the zigzag finish? That finish that had turned out perfectly on the last two quilts I've made?
** The Swoon binding was not perfect.
** I was not shocked.
** I confess I also thought bad thoughts about my book while I bound that quilt. We're all capable of bad thoughts.
** The pictures I took (at night, tsk, tsk) of the Swoon binding also turned out pants. I just deleted them all moments ago.
But, it gets better! Because, I then left the finished quilt in a crumpled mound on my table, like so. I left it there until the following night, when I set it aside with a "hmph" kind of sound. "I finished you. You can't hurt me anymore!" And then I made stars.
And the stars were so nice. They made me smile.
And then, and THEN....
Today I washed and dried the Swoon quilt, and spread it on my bed just to see. And what I saw wasn't the terribly, awful I saw before, but instead something crinkly and nice. I could even see the good done there, for this quilt has been made to bless someone and a blessing it will be indeed.
Tomorrow I'll have lots more pictures of the finished quilt. Today I just wanted to clear the air about the terrible awful part. And, to remind you to always, always make something else!