A Learning Experience

I had to do a bit of un-sewing on my Simple Gifts quilt. In the photo there is a double trail of needle size holes from two lines of parallel stitching I needed to remove. The trail extends from the side of the right loop of the bow, down the right side of the package, ending mid-way where the point of the seam ripper is. Why take out the stitiching? Was I being exceedingly fussy? No, the lines were fairly equidistant and pretty straight and quasi-parallel, actually a bit better than average on this quilt. Why then? Because I was exceedingly clutsy.

Here is the reverse side of the quilt. Apparently the upper corner of the quilt was flipped under as I merrily FMQ'd along on my HQSS sit down longarm. I should have heard the sound difference since I was now sewing through two tops, two battings and two backings; but, no, I was blissfully unaware. I was very focused on getting that ruler work just so. I am just lucky there was not more I needed to undo.

If (when) I was going to make a mistake(s), at least there were several redeeming features to this one. First, since the "accident" was near an edge, I could separate the two adjacent backing layers and slice very carefully at the stitches between them, kind of like the "skinning a quilt" technique. Second, I am glad I was brave enough to sew with a contrasting thread on the front. A contrasting thread color may show up errors more readily, but it also made it much easier to see when I needed to pick out those those errant threads. Third, my FMQ has improved enough that my stitches were not teeny tiny; they were a reasonable size to pick out.  This was vastly different from the 16 hours I spent picking out circles around dots in my son's birthday quilt last spring. My FMQ struggles with the Monkey Quilt can be seen in my post for May 14, 2014. My takeaway from this experience is that a good sign of improvement is not only if quilting begins to look better, but also if mistakes become fewer and easier to fix. Yay for goof ups! Small-ish ones that is.

While folks were off in Chicago for Sewtopia, I was off in Southern California celebrating the combined April birthdays of my son and his daughter. He turned 32 and she turned 1!  It looks my granddaughter is learning, too – about chocolate cupcakes. Mmmm, good!

Because of the fun time I had with them, I do not have more sewing to share for now, but I am sure the folks at this week's Freshly Pieced Works in Progress have lots. I am linking up there to check it out.