Patience & Quilting

BECAUSE ! A couple of years ago I sent a long armer a scrappy inaccurate HST quilt. It was a challenge to say the least. I don't even know what the difference may have been between the lengths and widths - but I trusted her to do magic. Somewhere in the middle, her tensions and bobbins and goblins went Wild and she had to unstitch for hours ... or days. The quilt top wasn't worth it. Its value was barely nothing. But: unstitch she did. The long shot of this is - When our granddaughter unwrapped the scrappy HST quilt that our so very special Louise had stitched, unstitched and covered in her magic - Everybody at the shower held their breath and then said, " Ahhhh" . Sometimes, dear Sherry, we must walk away and come back another day. A quilt says 'love'. Sometimes, it takes much longer. Polly

Hey Sherry

You made my day. I sat here and laughed. Not at your situation of course, but mine a couple years ago. I too pulled my hair out trying to learn how to machine quilt. There are days when nothing goes right so I quit for a couple days, then sit down and think about what happened and try to figure out how to fix it.

The local women's shelter and the local SPCA get my practice pieces. I make bath mats and doggy mats with my experimenting. I even kept a couple bath mats for myself. I tried to learn how to do feathers. They looked like adam's apples on a stick.But with patience and lots of practice I am doing better. Nothing show worthy, but the pups at the shelter go nuts for my projects. Don't get in a hurry trying to quilt your beautiul quilt tops right away, get some fabric you won't use in a quilt or even a cheater fabric and practice on that. It took a while to learn how to drive your car didn't it, well look at machine quilting the same as learning how to drive. With practice you will get better. Just keep plugging away and you'll get the hang of it.

Kate T. South Mississippi

Oh, Sherry! Nobody was born knowing how to load a quilt on a longarm. Nobody will die, or even suffer (much) if your tension is not perfect.

I agree with the advice of Polly and Kate. Walk away and come at it another day.

Rita

Oh, Polly, I still shudder when I remember rolling that quilt up and seeing the mess on the back! The biggest problem was that the needle had a burr on it, and as it went through the backing fabric, it caught on the fabric, created a snag, and pulled threads. It truly was awful!

Most of you remember Polly's one-eared mice quilt - well, this was the one! She had put the one-eared mice all around three sides of it, and it was so cute. When I told her what had happened and what a mess it was on the back side, Polly told me not to worry about it! We'd just tell everyone the mice had done it! Bless her heart! It was tempting and would have made for a great story, but I did unstitch anyway.

Thanks for the memory -- I think!

Kate - I love your description - adam's apple on a stick. Made me LOL!

Donna in IDaho

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