Handiwerx

To Be... or Not to Be

I embroidered these cute (free) designs from the Doodle Stitch Along at Lark Crafts.

By the way, if you want to use the quilt design Aimee used to set her little embroidered blocks, click here. 

I decided not to use that design because I wanted to make a baby quilt with embroidered motifs. I came up with a random design, adding an embroidered block that I made from parts of another of Aimee's freebie designs.

While I was trying to decide which colors for what block, etc., my work table experienced a color explosion.   The table has yet to recover.

I was enjoying the process of this baby quilt... until I started trying to quilt it.  I realized that, for some unknown reason, I was in a hurry to get this quilt done.  With that anxiety, I simply should have waited.

But nooooo!  I pressed ahead.  Pinning to quilt was an ordeal (it's a tiny quilt, for crying out loud!)  Getting my sewing machine ready was trouble.  Actual quilting started out okay, as I stitched in the ditch around the embroidery.

I'd made a HUGE error in quilter's judgement, using a striped fabric for backing!  The chaos began when I tried to quilt straight lines from top to bottom.  Despite a good plan, my best efforts for straightness, and what appeared to be going well, the stripes ended up slightly crooked.  Write this in your Quilting Tips List: never, NEVER use striped fabric ANYwhere in your quilt, except for the binding!

I tried to quilt it in wonky lines so it would not appear to be off--instead, all of it would truly be off!  ALAS, what a horrid undertaking.  In spite of the new walking foot I purchased to help eliminate pulling, my incapable Bernette 46 machine has pulled things back and forth in a sordid mess.

Currently, I am unsewing... and not happy about it.  And if I run out of patience BEFORE I finish removing the thousands of quilt stitches, this one may end up in the rag bag or get hacked into something else.

Stay tuned...