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Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Serendipity

I haven't finished any quilts this year. It is nearly September. What have I been doing? Lots of piecing. I have finished several tops, but no quilting finishes. What's the story?

The last time I blogged about Judi Madsen's Serendipity was in February here. I was so in love with this project, I couldn't wait to get it done.

Since I still work full-time, my only sewing time is on the weekend. I spend every available minute in my sewing room on weekends. I actually resent when any event intrudes on my sewing time, no matter what it is. Each weekend, I get as much done as I can, and then resume the next weekend. I just dive in and take up where I left off.

One weekend, I went at it. Pebble, pebble, pebble. Great. Doesn't this look great?


Uh oh. Look again. The previous weekend, I hadn't completed tracing the pattern onto the quilt top. I inadvertantly pebbled over areas that were supposed to be unquilted. What to do? Do I repeat the mistake in the remaining two feature blocks so it won't look like a mistake? No. These are the main part of the design of the quilt. I knew I would hate it every time I looked at it. Rip out? All those tiny stitches? I couldn't face that huge mistake and fix it. I spent several months ignoring the problem. Every time I went to my sewing room, I walked past it. I couldn't bear to spend precious time in my happy space ripping out tiny, tiny stitches.


Several times I would make myself work on it for an hour. I always ended up with a backache. The pain became another excuse to ignore it. I finally kicked myself in the butt and started working on it. I took the quilt off the frame so I could handle it better. I spent a couple of intense days picking out stitches and threads. I was so afraid that I would poke a hole in the fabric with my ripper, but I don't think I did.


 This is what the design is supposed to look like. Much better.


 I hope the holes will close up when I soak the quilt to block and remove the blue marker.




Back to work. Progress is finally being made.







I have finished the bottom border. Now it is time to turn the quilt so I can work on the sides. That's my plan for Labor Day weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

1 comment:

A Left-Handed Quilter said...

Much better!! Ripping it out is the only way to go sometimes - it would have bothered you if you didn't fix it and I can relate to that. By the way, I was wondering what you were up to - should have known it was something awesome - ;))