Words Were Said

 I have a friend whose son said he learned to swear listening to his mother at the sewing machine.

I can relate.  

Remember our DIL asked for some placemats, a Christmas tree skirt and two pillows for the porch out of the plaid horse blanket I had purchased years and years ago.  

I thought those would be easy peasy projects so said yes, I'd do it.  I have my own deadline because we will be seeing grandson Charlie soon and wanted to have him take them home to his mom.   So I got to cutting.

This blanket/fabric ravels like crazy.  It's thick and tightly woven but cut that edge and it's a continual game of catch up.

I bought some two-inch wide cotton twill tape because I have to be able to bend it.  I ironed it in half so the front and back would be equal.  The issue is that tape just didn't want to play along.  

I worked and worked for 3.5 days solid, all day, pinning, maneuvering, and it was a disaster at every step.  Did I give up? No. I was going to win, dammit. 

I had to sew two rows of seams on all sides.  One straight and then saw the twill was just flying and wrinkling so ran a zig zag to tame it.  But it was ugly. Words were said.  For 3.5 days solid.

I have made many, many quilts so know how to turn a corner.  The corners were a disaster.

But where I joined the two ends was the worst.  Absolute worst.  I finished them because I was hoping the more I did the better I'd figure it out.  And I couldn't take a seam ripper to it, the stitches just buried themselves in the binding. I slept on it.  In the night it came to me.

Next morning I told PH I was going to do them all over again.  The look on his face!  "WHAT??" He had been listening to the words coming out of my mouth for 3.5 days.

I cut twelve more, bound eight of them before running out of 50 yards of binding and ordered more. It will be here Sunday and those last four will be done and looking SO much better.  

The answer?  Don't turn the corner and don't connect the two ends.  Cut four pieces and add each one end to end.  It worked just as my dream said it would.  

The skirt worked that way, too.  The middle split is bound and then I did the outside of the circle, independent pieces.  The middle hole, though. Hmmm....

In the night it came to me.  Don't wrestle with that small opening with fraying fabric and twill tape that doesn't cooperate with the machine.  Glue it. I'm going to glue it.  I never ever use glue but I'm going to glue it.

The two pillows?  It's a long way till spring, they can wait.