This is a true event that happened to me about two years ago. Some of you here may remember this story from my original post, but I thought I'd repost it for all the new readers here who haven't seen it before. It is as educational as it is funny.
I've got a friend who decided to make a cross stitched baby quilt and she only had a month to do it all. She has never read a quilting book, or watched anyone else make a quilt, so she was a little clueless about quilting. But she is the type to jump into a project with both feet and try her heart out.
She made 9 blocks, cross stitched with Winnie the Pooh and friends. She did the stitching on muslin about the size of men's handkerchiefs using waste canvas and they were very nice. She stitched every spare moment she could, including at an out of state business course, and still had to stitch through one night instead of sleeping just so she would have one day to get the other supplies she needed for the quilt, and one night to put it all together. Her plan was to set the nine blocks with sashing in a straight setting. Simple enough that when she was telling me about it I thought she knew what she was doing.
After a frantic trip to find some Pooh fabric for the backing and sashing strips she was all set to start. She cut the sashing strips and for some unknown reason she made tubes out of the first strip of sashing. Even her DH knew something was terribly wrong with her plan, but she shhhed him and continued making her sashing tubes. She turned the tubes right side out and called me to ask for my iron because she doesn't own one.
She came to my place to do the ironing. While I did some hand quilting, she ironed all the blocks then started ironing her sashing. This is when I looked up and saw the tubes. I asked her why she made tubes while trying hard not to laugh. She replied that it was part of her plan. I didn't want to upset her too much, so I quietly asked her how she planned to attach her sashing to the blocks. She said it made perfect sense to her before she made the tubes, but now that they were sewn and turned she wasn't so sure about it. So we had a good laugh while ripping the seams of the tubes, then she started ironing them flat again. And that is when I realized she didn't know the difference between ironing and pressing.
I looked at all the parts of this soon to be top, and I don't think there was any piece that was not stretched out of shape. I taught her the difference between ironing and pressing. I did some ironing to square up what I could because it was now 10:30 PM and the shower she was giving was the next afternoon. She was way beyond the 11th hour on this project, and she had to make the special cake for the shower after she finished the quilt. I tried to get her to let me help her put together the top at my place where I knew all the tools and a properly working sewing machine was handy, but she would only sew on her machine which was currently at her DH's place of work because there was a big table in the kitchen that she could use. So off we went.
Once there, I asked her to lay out the blocks the way she wanted them on the quilt. She got that done and I laid the sashing in the correct places. This was when I noticed the sashing was not the same length as the blocks. Ok, I cut off excess with short bladed needlework scissors and hand her the first two pieces, matched up but not pinned because she had no straight pins with her. We continue until we have three rows of three blocks with the short sashing between.
The machine wasn't sewing nice flat seams, but she was just happy things were getting put together. We fiddled with the tension several times but the big problem was the presser foot. It did not come with this machine and I've never seen one like it. Totally flat, no rise in the front or back. Because this foot didn't come with the machine I am sure it wasn't supposed to fit but she had put it on anyway, and the foot was putting too much pressure on the fabric thus the feed dogs were not working properly. She had not brought her box of feet with her, and there was no way to adjust the presser foot tension without tools, so she just ploughed onward.
Once we had all the rows done they needed to be sewn together. The rows were not straight because all the pieces were not the same size to start with, but they could have been trimmed to something closer to straight if we had a pair of shears with a blade longer than one inch. However she had expected to only need to snip thread, so she didn't have any shears, only a small pair of needlework scissors. Time for me to sit at the machine and ignore the material edges and try to make a straight seam. Every seamstress has had to fudge a seam at one time or another and I am no exception, and I was the only one of us that had experience to do it.
Did I tell you I had never seen a presser foot like the one on her machine? For the first time in nearly 20 years of sewing there was no part of the presser foot rising above the fabric to warn me to move my finger, and I have no depth perception. My finger went right over the thin presser foot because it was pressing the fabric so hard there wasn't any difference in height at all. Yep, that needle went right through my finger, nail and all. I moved fast enough that it didn't have time to bleed on the fabric. My friend calmly stated that I was now a real seamstress because you can't call yourself that until you have sewn you finger at least once. I bit my tongue so I would not remind her who was the newbie at sewing. She finished sewing the top while her DH ran for a first aide kit. I only needed a Band-Aid but he bandaged my finger to within an inch of it's life.
So at 1:00 am, sporting a wad of cotton and tape on my left index finger, I helped her sandwich the quilt. First she pulled out a new blanket and cut a piece to use for the batting using those little needlework scissors. Then the backing needed to be trimmed to size too. We laid it all out and although the top wasn't truly flat it wasn't too bad and would probably quilt up ok. She wanted to bind it immediately and take it home to quilt it while she baked, so I had to explain that it wouldn't work out right that way. I convinced her to baste it with the safety pins she had with her and stitch in the ditch along the sashing strips then bind it. The heavy pressure of the presser foot made this hard, but she was happy with it. Then it was time to bind and we just did a simple wrapped binding, wrapping the backing to the front. I would have trimmed a little more off the backing before folding the binding into place, but my friend could see light at the end of the tunnel and she wasn't about to be delayed by something that could just be folded one more time. It wasn't the best job of binding I've ever seen but not the worst either.
The last seam was sewn at 2:00 am, at which point she exclaimed she could not have finished it without my help. My friend swore that she would not be cross stitching for at least a week and that she'd never make another quilt in her life.
This little quilt looked pretty good considering it was made with little money, less quilting knowledge, no measuring, and a huge lack of proper sewing tools. I can only believe that the great amount of love she put into it made the difference. The quilt was received well by my friend's niece. My friend made the offer to take the quilt back home and fix a few flaws, but her niece would not let her take it away.
Oh yes, my friend did make the special Winnie the Pooh cake for the shower. She saved me a piece. After the shower was over and the mess cleaned up, my friend stayed at her mom's to visit awhile. She cross stitched on a new project during her visit. And when she was telling me about the shower that night, she mentioned making another quilt. A bigger one. I knew she would. I really have to loan her one of my quilting books so she will know what she is doing next time. And maybe buy her a presser foot that actually fits her machine.
Debra in VA See my quilts at