Have a seat and let me tell you the story about the BLUE DEMON. That is the name I gave my last project from Hell. Appropriate name on multiple levels but that is another time and place. This innocent looking project started two months ago. Everything was going fine and on schedule so I was pretty happy. I managed to get my embroidery machine to do buttonhole stitching around it nicely and my four blocks all intersected nicely and life was good..........UNTIL......
October rolled around and I picked up the wall hanging (didn't have a name yet) and smiled. That smile turned upside down rather quickly once I tried to quilt my fabric sandwich. Not a problem I was thinking. I messed up this one section but this could be an opportunity to practice stippling. I'll just cover it up with that. Uh huh...I can see and hear you other quilters starting to chuckle. You know where this is headed don't you. Yep. It didn't work out and in fact made it worse. So I took my picture of it (it's in the blog somewhere) so I would remember not to make the same mistakes twice. I didn't.
By this time I am past the deadline but so was my partner so we made arrangements to just keep on working on our projects and exchange at a later date. So I searched through my fabric and found that I had enough of MOST of the fabric that I used in the earlier project and was still happy. The front of the piece would be a different white on white but that would be ok. So now starts the NEW mistakes. Fused the applique pieces to the wrong side of the fabric. Luckily I caught this before I had finished so I turned it into a two squares fused on right side of fabric, two squares fused on back side of fabric. Needed to be careful with layout so that they wouldn't be put together. Not too bad. Pretty proud of myself for avoiding that little disaster.
So I traced out and cut out and ironed on my pattern. Looking good so far.
I did say so far didn't I? I sewed the four squares together (and the seams matched) and then I started to do my buttonhole stitch around the design on my embroidery machine since I had just finished stitching up a design for the label. That worked out pretty good. I had gotten 1/4 of a block done when I remember I had to finish up another project that evening. So stop working on the Blue Demon and get out the other one. I was working on the new project and got it 3/4 of the way done when my embroidery machine froze up on me. I mean totally froze up. I couldn't (and still can't) get the needle to lift up from the plate. I will have to take it into the shop when my income tax money comes in. Until then it is back to the Singer which sounds like it will quit working anytime. This is where I named the Blue Demon project. My Singer doesn't do buttonhole and I wouldn't have enough time to do it all by hand. So I switched stitches. One of the four squares is 1/4 done in buttonhole and the other 3/4s is done in feather stitch (as well as the other four squares to the wall hanging). Sigh. Ok ok....i stepped back and looked at it. It's not THAT noticeable I keep telling myself and I can get it sent out.
Fold, put in plastic, put in envelope and take to post office. Take back from post office because I forgot the customs form and the address. It's STILL the Blue Demon.....but after I put it in the mail tomorrow it will be somebody elses Blue Demon (and I'm NOT going to tell them what I named it because they might ship it back)!
PS: Don't tell her that the label is from different fabric than the back and perhaps she won't notice. This wall hanging isn't as wrinkly as it looks in the picture either.
October rolled around and I picked up the wall hanging (didn't have a name yet) and smiled. That smile turned upside down rather quickly once I tried to quilt my fabric sandwich. Not a problem I was thinking. I messed up this one section but this could be an opportunity to practice stippling. I'll just cover it up with that. Uh huh...I can see and hear you other quilters starting to chuckle. You know where this is headed don't you. Yep. It didn't work out and in fact made it worse. So I took my picture of it (it's in the blog somewhere) so I would remember not to make the same mistakes twice. I didn't.
By this time I am past the deadline but so was my partner so we made arrangements to just keep on working on our projects and exchange at a later date. So I searched through my fabric and found that I had enough of MOST of the fabric that I used in the earlier project and was still happy. The front of the piece would be a different white on white but that would be ok. So now starts the NEW mistakes. Fused the applique pieces to the wrong side of the fabric. Luckily I caught this before I had finished so I turned it into a two squares fused on right side of fabric, two squares fused on back side of fabric. Needed to be careful with layout so that they wouldn't be put together. Not too bad. Pretty proud of myself for avoiding that little disaster.
So I traced out and cut out and ironed on my pattern. Looking good so far.
I did say so far didn't I? I sewed the four squares together (and the seams matched) and then I started to do my buttonhole stitch around the design on my embroidery machine since I had just finished stitching up a design for the label. That worked out pretty good. I had gotten 1/4 of a block done when I remember I had to finish up another project that evening. So stop working on the Blue Demon and get out the other one. I was working on the new project and got it 3/4 of the way done when my embroidery machine froze up on me. I mean totally froze up. I couldn't (and still can't) get the needle to lift up from the plate. I will have to take it into the shop when my income tax money comes in. Until then it is back to the Singer which sounds like it will quit working anytime. This is where I named the Blue Demon project. My Singer doesn't do buttonhole and I wouldn't have enough time to do it all by hand. So I switched stitches. One of the four squares is 1/4 done in buttonhole and the other 3/4s is done in feather stitch (as well as the other four squares to the wall hanging). Sigh. Ok ok....i stepped back and looked at it. It's not THAT noticeable I keep telling myself and I can get it sent out.
Fold, put in plastic, put in envelope and take to post office. Take back from post office because I forgot the customs form and the address. It's STILL the Blue Demon.....but after I put it in the mail tomorrow it will be somebody elses Blue Demon (and I'm NOT going to tell them what I named it because they might ship it back)!
PS: Don't tell her that the label is from different fabric than the back and perhaps she won't notice. This wall hanging isn't as wrinkly as it looks in the picture either.
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