Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Ughhhhh

I'm having a hard time finding good time to sew. My weekdays are busy: wake up, go to work, do work, come home, eat dinner, [block of time], talk with long distance boyfriend, sleep. It doesn't leave much time for the two friends I have here in Nashville, and my weekends are usually eaten up by the sewing goals I didn't achieve during the week. Have a wedding quilt to work on? Ehh, just churn it all out on Saturday! And Sunday! And cry a little on Monday because you realized you sewed half of it on upside down!

I'm making more mistakes in my sewing, now that I have to sew at night. Once I'm home from work and have eaten dinner, all I really want to do is some yoga and then watch TV. But I'm pushing myself to finish up some projects, so I sit at my mom's machine and churn away.

But my mom's machine is not my machine. And that has become painfully obvious with my Sisters' Ten BOM quilt. Since it was completed over the course of a year (plus however long it takes me to finish...), I've had to use two machines on it. Seam allowances aren't consistent, tension settings are different, blocks from January have settled and faded a bit while the November block is crisp and unforgiving. And like I said in my last post, the squares are not all the proper 12.5" they should be- some are more, some are less.

I sewed half the quilt together this weekend, making sure to figure out what the quarter inch allowance on my mom's machine is. Her presser foot is larger than a quarter inch, so I had to line up the fabric with the middle of the foot. Very unscientific. Well, tonight, I went to whip together the other half, and completely did not think about keeping a true quarter inch. So I just sewed to the edge of the presser foot. And now my 1" sashing is like 3/4" on the lower half of the quilt. Go me.

 
One is wider than the other....

On one hand, I really want this to be a nice quilt where points match up and everything goes together and it WORKS. On the other hand, I'm really tired and things don't line up anyway so why bother.

It's times like this where I want to throw all my fabric into the air and fly away. Have you run into a project that just wears you down? When do you find time to sew? Obviously, the nighttime shift isn't working for me.

8 comments:

  1. I was there for a little while when my quarter inch foot broke! It was so sad. But what I did is get some painters tape, figure out where a 1/4 inch was, and mark it so I could line the edge of the fabric up with the tape. You have to replace the tape sometimes, but it totally works! You should give it a shot :)

    Cheer up! You'll figure it out, I believe in yoooooou!

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  2. I have a project in quilt time out right now because it isn't behaving. It happens to all of us.

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  3. If the foot isn't the right size, you could always try adjusting the needle position. That was my fix on my dear old Kenmore. It might also be worth buying a quarter inch foot to reduce the annoyance and stress. I love the squid print in your blocks. Be kind to your quilt-y self. Most of the time when we make gifts, we're the only ones who see the little seams that aren't perfect. Everyone else is marveling at the lovely colours and patterns. Enjoy the quilting journey!

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  4. If the foot isn't the right size, you could always try adjusting the needle position. That was my fix on my dear old Kenmore. It might also be worth buying a quarter inch foot to reduce the annoyance and stress. I love the squid print in your blocks. Be kind to your quilt-y self. Most of the time when we make gifts, we're the only ones who see the little seams that aren't perfect. Everyone else is marveling at the lovely colours and patterns. Enjoy the quilting journey!

    ReplyDelete
  5. If the foot isn't the right size, you could always try adjusting the needle position. That was my fix on my dear old Kenmore. It might also be worth buying a quarter inch foot to reduce the annoyance and stress. I love the squid print in your blocks. Be kind to your quilt-y self. Most of the time when we make gifts, we're the only ones who see the little seams that aren't perfect. Everyone else is marveling at the lovely colours and patterns. Enjoy the quilting journey!

    ReplyDelete
  6. If the foot isn't the right size, you could always try adjusting the needle position. That was my fix on my dear old Kenmore. It might also be worth buying a quarter inch foot to reduce the annoyance and stress. I love the squid print in your blocks. Be kind to your quilt-y self. Most of the time when we make gifts, we're the only ones who see the little seams that aren't perfect. Everyone else is marveling at the lovely colours and patterns. Enjoy the quilting journey!

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  7. We sew for joy. If a project is frustrating, put it down and sew something you're excited about. Someday, you'll have the energy and motivation to come back to it. What's the point of making if it isn't making you happy??? I find a small improv-piecing project with scraps can be a great refresher. Someday, I'll take all those random blocks a make a quilt out of them! Meantime, they keep me happy. :)

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  8. I wish we could live close so I could come to your house and just be like yep, sewing is sucky right now but something will change and things will fall into place, hopefully soon so you'll forget the tough spot. And the blocks are stunning no matter what size they ended up, if you'll have to add different sized sashing or whatever. The feat is amazing. :)

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