Monday 6 January 2014

O is for Oh we're having a tantrum about quilting: ABC BOW week 17

Hello my quilty friends.  I am having a lovely sewing and bloggy time at the moment.  I am managing to get things ticked off my to-do list and organise a few long term projects for the year.  And I've managed to sort the blog out a bit more.  What do you think?  I am going to do a new header, but I though this was a bit more summery in the meantime.

One of the things I was very excited to get finished was my ABC quilt top.  In fact I hoped to show you a completely finished quilt today.  But no.  This is what I will show you.  O is for Octopus.

O is for Octopus
You will see that some quilting is underway.  That is not happy quilting.  No sirree.  I had stupidly decided to use a stitch on Bernie which creates a stitch that looks (roughly) like hand stitching.  Well sometimes it does.  Sometimes it looks like stupid little dots, like in my photo.  Blergh.

In principle a quick hand sewing type stitch is an awesome idea.  In reality - na - ah.  You use invisible thread for the top, which breaks all. the. time.  And it is sooooo slow.  Really, it would have been quicker to hand quilt properly.  And the worst thing is, I've done one block wrong.  It needs unpicking and it takes forever.  Fail.

In fact the whole thing has annoyed me so much I put it aside and made a whole new baby quilt in the same time it took me to quilt half of this.  Gah.  But more about that later!

Anyway - tantrum over - how are you doing?  I can see there has been some catching up.  Although some of you are being conspicuously absent.  I won't name and shame you, because we all sew when we can, but I am very keen to see how you are going!

Come and link up and say Hi ... I hope your quilting is less annoying than mine.


   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   




9 comments:

Kristy @ Quiet Play said...

I hate sewing days like that - where nothing seems to go right. Hopefully now that's done, you'll be on to much more successful, happy and relaxing sewing!

Meanwhile - that octopus looks very cute!

Leonie said...

Ugh, so feel your pain!! hopefully on another day it will all just come together and save some more character building for another time :)

Tanya Quilts in CO said...

I can't stand invisible thread! My machine quilting sucks, but my hand quilting is not fab either. I would love to have everything professionally quilted, but that would totally blow my fabric budget. Dilemmas!

Megan said...

Oooh, I shall add that to my list of things to avoid, although like you, I would have thought pretend hand quilting was an awesome idea!! I love your new header - it does look really summery and pretty and like we should all head to the beach right this minute!

DeborahGun said...

so frustrating - sorry :-( Yes - still absent on the ABC I'm afraid, but I have started a blog :-)

Leyre said...

Lovely blue dotty fabric! I feel pressured with all these beautiful finished quilts!!! Pressured and jealous... Let's see how my project turns out!

Lucy | Charm About You said...

urgh annoying!! I'm absent because I'm playing catch up (I started 2 days ago on the proper one!)... I'm on 'G' but my friend's baby is due THIS month so I better get off the computer and get back to stitching ;)

Tiffany said...

He's a cute little octopus! When I first saw the picture, I was like, wow, what an interesting stitch. It does sound like a neat idea, and looks very nice in the top corner!
I'm sure you're much smarter than I was while you're doing this, but just a tip! Watch out for the embroidery while pulling your quilt through the machine. Mine picked.... twice... (the major downfall of the ballerina block) :(
Can't wait to see it finished!!!

Sarah said...

Yuck I hate those sewing days. What a waste of the little time we do get to sew! I just got a new machine for Christmas that has that hand quilted looking stitch, but I hate invisible thread so I think I'll avoid it. I just joined Instagram this year and see in your side bar that you are on there too. I'm off to follow you now. You are welcome to follow me too at sarahkrothe and see what I'm working on.