This week I definitely had a SEW WRONG moment. It all began a few weeks ago while thrift shopping (a huge hobby of mine) when I came across a moving box full of quilting fabric. Let me say I am in thrift stores 3-4 days a week and have NEVER come across good useable quilting fabric before. I have seen lots of fabric, decorator fabrics, ugly polyester knits from the 70's, you name it, but never good quality quilting fabric. It was someones whole stash, and though the fabric was vintage the original owner had good taste, lots of tiny print fabrics, all very classic, and nice big one yard and two yard pieces, even a nice assortment of fat quarters. I quickly took the whole box up to the front and asked the employee how much she was asking for the box- she took a quick look and replied "would 10 dollars be okay?" I quickly agreed and happily trotted out of the store with this great new score. When I got home I sorted through it and saw that almost half the box was vintage Christmas fabric. Lots of calico style prints in classic red and green. I thought to myself, self, you could really make good use of this. Every year around the holidays I try to list some extra items in my
Etsy shop to help make extra money for the holidays. January is typically a really slow month for our little business, so any extra money in December really helps. I have mostly aprons in my store, but last year I didn't have very many sales, so I still have a large stock of them, so this year I thought I would try something different. With all this fabric I could make some classic Holiday quilts to put in my shop, and since the fabric was so inexpensive I could price them to sell quickly. That was the master plan. So I spent a week researching what types of quilts I would like to make and found a great tutorial on Missouri Star Quilt Company's Youtube page for a
Jacobs Ladder quilt. I thought one in red and ivory would be really classic, and would make good use of some of that fabric. I pulled two pieces of what I THOUGHT was the same print and started cutting and piecing. I made 6 blocks and had run out of the 4 patches that make up half of the blocks. I then spent another few hours making enough to finish the quilt out of the second piece of fabric. After ironing them and squaring them up (another hour later) I went to lay out another block and OH %^&* - the fabric wasn't the same as I used in the first 6 blocks, the shade was slightly off and the print had more dots in it!! UGH. At least 3 days worth of work down the toilet. I was not a very happy camper. So unhappy in fact, I am still trying to decide if I should scrap the project all together or try to start over... once the sting lessens in the next week I am sure my head will be clearer on how to solve this dilemma, but for now I am still pretty upset about it and can't think clearly. To console myself and remain productive I switched gears and made an adorable stuffed piggy for my nephew Shep's first birthday. I used some Joel Dewberry upholstery weight fabric and am pleased as punch with the results. I didn't use a pattern, just winged it, but it is pretty darned cute if I do say so myself. I know I am not the only one with tragic oversights ruining a project, so here is to the sew wrong and sew wright moments that make this quilting journey a bumpy but memorable one!
I am linking to WIP Wednesday at
Freshly Pieced
