Sunday, August 16, 2015

A swap........ and an epic fail!

Last Friday was the opening day for an on line swap - the brief was to make a project for your swap partner using Cottage Garden threads...

I was lucky to have Lynda as my swap partner and she stitched this cute gift...Love it...

I stitched for Sarah in Tasmania and sent off a Gail Pan designed wall quilt.....Bless my Garden from the Patchwork Loves Embroidery book....

It was fun to stitch and I can see at least one more of these in my future...

All in all a pretty successful swap....and the epic fail? Hmmmmm you may well ask!

I have recently finished a couple of tops for babies of friends....nothing wrong with the tops, they went together beautifully.....so last weekend I got one of them ready for quilting...and this weekend was all about quilting that sucker.....and after some procrastination...which saw me doing some food shopping and then cooking up some meals for the week ahead I finally made it into the sewing room - I cleared everything off the table around the machine (finding a "home" on the floor for it all whilst making a note to myself that I really needed to have a big tidy up in this room.....and off I went....powering along.....just straight line stuff - nothing fancy....and about half way through I thought I would take a break and check out my amazing work.....Pfffft....on turning the quilt over it was obvious that this was indeed an epic fail...the backing was puckered ....badly!! Not something that was going to be fixable, so I took a break (there may have been a few swear words uttered as I left the room) and decided the whole thing was going in the bin....but since I quite liked the top l I decided (after a break) I would unpick the quilting and send it to a professional (should have done that in the first place I think!) so at 3am I unpicked the final stitch and went to bed!! (I was determined to finish it last night as I had plans for today!)

The plan for today was to have that tidy up in the sewing room....it was fun re-discovering long lost projects and planning to actually do some sewing one day! Perhaps next weekend.....maybe....all in all a very satisfying day albeit without a stitch being sewn!

There was even a bit of sunshine around today and the trees in my front yard are starting to give a hint that Spring is just around the corner....

'Til next time.........Lorraine

 

 

 

 

 

10 comments:

Susan said...

I feel your pain, I am taking a break from unpicking to read your post. Not a happy activity! Great swap gifts, your stitcheries are so cute.

Katie said...

Oh no! Sometimes there is no way around that unpicking. Sigh.

Now I need to go back to my sewing room cleaning or I will be trapped in here forever by all the stuff I’ve pulled out into the middle of the floor!! :-)

Sue SA said...

Well the redwork wall hanging is sweet, and so be it if your machine quilting didn't work....perhaps next time the quilting gods will smile on you!

River said...

Too bad about the puckered backing, is there any way to know what causes that to happen?
I've never tried to make a quilt, I just don't have that much skill or patience, I'd rather buy one.
We have trees beginning to blossom here too.

Chookyblue...... said...

lovely swap gifts given and received............
bugger about the baby quilt...........

Cardygirl said...

Oh no!

Lynda said...

The blossoms are so pretty. Why does the simplest thing have to turn into a major operation?

AnnieO said...

Totally adorable swap gifts! Your partner will be amazed at their receipt of your Gail Pan project.

Epic fails are at least good fodder for retelling :)

Linda said...

Oh dear! I hate unpicking but unpicking quilting is the pits!

Karen said...

Bless My Garden is lovely. You do such very nice stitching.