Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Sewing Wisdom for 2014...or for Always

1.  Never trust the cat.

Especially if she has a thread fetish.


2.  Never trust a nearly soundlessly whirring sewing machine.

When you think, "Wow, this Bernina is so smooth!" check the bobbin tension.  Immediately.


Sigh.  So my plan was to finish that pesky quilt top by tonight, since I hadn't managed to yesterday.  Sew 3 pieces together.  Sew that 3-piece strip onto each of the 20 blocks.  Put up Fons & Porter design wall, and lay out the blocks.  Put up the sashing and cornerstones.  Sew it all.  Decide if I'm doing a final outer border.  Done!  Pictures.  Blog.  Check another one off the list.

Enter Bella. 
(cue sinister music, dun, dun.....dun, dun....)

Strategically placed herself ON the stack of blocks waiting assembly!  Honestly, whoever is in charge of the cat population memo system---we could learn a thing, or fifty!

Just as I sat down to sew, I walked into, yet again, a long, spiderweb feeling length of thread (I'm talking a few yards here) running from its cone, OUT of the machine where I'd left it, across the floor, onto the bed, onto a certain cat's scratching post...you get the picture.  Sigh.  Unravel.  Wind.  Discard.  Cat hair, some drool here and there on it.  Again.  Will I never learn?

Thread machine, and yes, it was going fine. 

Four blocks done, get up to press.  I'm on a ROLL, got a system, sister!

Snicker.  Purr.

Lay down the first of three completed blocks (the fourth being under the presser foot of the machine, because I chain sew), and I see LOOPS.  Top thread looks awesome.  Bottom thread not so much.  Are you kidding me?  Not only the final seam, but every single one of those strips of three I'd pieced, I had to redo.  Loss of time?  Two hours, maybe more.

All four are redone, and on the design wall.  Twelve left.  Yeah, yeah, and the sashing and the cornerstones, yada yada, I know.

Damn cat.  But she's so cute...

2 comments:

  1. Bella is just exercising her cat privileges. What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine and whats his is mine. She's just making use of the wide variety of toys at her disposal to keep her mind and her claws sharp. Really, I don't know why you haven't caught onto that yet.

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