Tips and Tools Tuesday – An “Oh, NO!” Moment

One of the quilting blogs I follow is called Farmhouse Quilts. On it, Monique shares fun projects to make, photos, and stories about her family. It’s like sitting across the table from a dear friend, sipping a cup of tea, and catching up on what’s happening in her life. I highly recommend checking out her blog!

Anyway, she has a tutorial on Quilt As You Go (QAYG). She suggested a simple, yet really cute, block for us to make so we could learn the process.

I took that pattern and created my four blocks. However, before the next installment of her tutorial was posted the next Friday, my mind took these blocks in a different direction that included fusible applique in the middle where the block would join. So, they became this little table topper for our kitchen table.

Did you notice anything amiss in the photo above?

Look carefully.

Do you see something on the lower, left side of the little quilt?

Well, this was my “Oh, NO!” moment.

See, when I am making a quilt, often times, the quilting design will just pop into my head and I’ll know exactly how I am going to quilt it. Sometimes it doesn’t. When that happens, I’ll place a piece of self-sticking plastic wrap right on a section of the quilt block and doodle different designs until I find the right one.  I use a very fine permanent marker because it’s about the width of the stitching line I’ll be creating.  I had already stitched in the ditch, to secure the layers, stitched around the green, machine-appliqued, triangle accent squares, and free-handed the flowers, but wasn’t sure what I wanted to do around the outside “border” area. So, I started doodling.

When I finished doodling, and had decided on a quilt design, I removed the plastic wrap and saw, to my horror, that I’d marked on the quilt itself! AAAAAAAAGH! How in the world did I do that????????!!!!!!!!! I just wasn’t paying attention to where the edge of the plastic wrap was, that’s how. Lesson learned!  GRRR! Now what?

I already had most of the quilting done, so replacing the two sections with the marks was NOT an option.

I decided to stitch right on top of the line a couple of times with the yellow thread and hopefully that would make it less noticeable.

That did lighten the line somewhat, but, my eye still went right to it every time I looked at it. (Like when you chip a tooth, or bite your cheek and your tongue can’t leave it alone.)

I decided to go ahead and quilt it like I had planned and hopefully it would get lost in the other lines of stitching. Kind of like “Where’s Waldo?”.

But, I knew exactly where “Waldo” was! And, it only accentuated the goofy-looking leaf I tried to make out of it! UGH!

It stayed like that for three days. In the mean time, we visited our daughter and son-in-law for the weekend, and played with the grandkids. I stitched the binding on while we traveled. (You can see my method for adding a single-fold binding with mitered corners here.)

Then, today, I had an idea on how I could hide it.  (Better late than never. ) I decided to do a blind stitch on either side of the line.

I took a tiny stitch just below the line, then one just above, one below, etc. until I got to the end of the line. Then I pulled the stitches tight. They enveloped the line just like I’d hoped! Woohoo!

The black line was covered up and now the eye doesn’t notice it. YAY!

That’s what I should have done in the first place, before I quilted it! Then it would have been hidden and I could have quilted the leaf in the proper position. Hindsight.

Now, it’s not perfect, but, I can live with that. 🙂

I have a really fun tip to share with you, today. I saw it on an episode of Love of Quilting, and it’s super handy!

Use an empty tissue box for threads and bits of trimmed fabric .  When it’s full, throw it away. Easy, peasy.

It works so well! I keep one by my sewing machine and easily move it to my cutting table. When I empty another tissue box, I’ll keep one at each station.

Today is a good day to try something new.

Like, maybe quilt as you go. Check out Monique’s tutorial on QAYG with video assistance. It just might be your new “go-to” quilting style.

Have a great day!

Diane

P.S. I did make a new set of blocks so that I could learn how to  Quilt as You Go. This time I went “patriotic!