Saturday, April 16, 2011

Friday Night Sew In




Friday night, and I sat down with my seam ripper, a pair of tweezers and a pin, to start unpicking  10 "circles of doom" on the Champagne and Strawberries quilt.
It's the raw edge circle quilt, pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew that I started some time ago and began free motion quilting a few weeks ago. The original plan was for a circle pattern on the circles but after I started I didn't like it because I quilted it too heavily and I think I'm going to change the pattern to circles/bubbles within the circles, after all the quilt is called Strawberries and Champagne. The pic below is probably one of the better ones, I'm too embarrassed to show the worst ones.
I unpicked one on Thursday night and it took me an hour, that's why they are now nicknamed the circles of doom.  So Friday evening, four hours later, I had unpicked three more circles. I really really dislike doing this, but I'll dislike the quilt even more if I don't do it. As someone pointed out to me, now that I've unpicked four, I'm over 33% of the way through. At least I can do it sitting in front of the tv, not that I can watch the tv as I'm too scared that I'll cut a hole in the quilt top, but I can listen to the programme.


I took a break from unpicking and went through my stash to find eight orange fabrics for the next block in the Monochromatic Challenge. I've also picked out the embroidery pic for the centre of the block, sorry,  you will have to wait for that to be unveiled at the end of the month.

So not much sewing, in fact no sewing, but I made a dent in the number of circles to be unpicked and I'm that much closer to it being finished.


11 comments:

  1. I love the fabrics and pattern in this quilt! But I feel for you - I absolutely hate ripping out stitches (yuck!) No sewing for me this Friday night, I'm working :(

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  2. Goodness Marg you must have a lot of patience to do that! dont envy you one bit. I like your idea to quilt bubbles, it will look great!

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  3. It's so annoying that it takes 2 minutes to sew things on, and 2 hours to unpick them (ok, slight exaggeration!) but still!!! You know I love this quilt... so so much :0)

    I vote they invent a magic undo button/or mini time travel system so you can rewind the accidental stitches which take so long to unpick.

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  4. Don't ya HaTe unpicking!!!! It will be wonderful when its finished though! :)

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  5. Unpicking counts as craftiness-trust me.

    You'll love it when it's done the way you envisaged. Well worth all the pain.

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  6. I feel for you - ripping out stitches is a royal PITA! I'm with Michelle on the mini undo or travel back machine, LOL! I recently completed a cross-stitch panel for Christmas Recipts, sigh - there's ripping in MY future as well, LOL!

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  7. Of course you are right to unpick it now before it is too late. You will never be happy with it but I know it is a drag.
    Those oranges look very vibrant.
    Cheers
    Helen

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  8. "Circles of Doom"... love it! You're smart to get it done before continuing tho...

    I like the French Roses quilt top... I have that pattern and will tackle it when I assemble the fabrics I'd like to use... looking forward to seeing your finish!

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  9. Oooh Marg that is a tough job!! Circles of Doom indeed!!! How are you going to quilt the top now?? Bubbles? Thank goodness you decided you didn't like it before you had done the whole quilt!! See there is always an up-side ;-)

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  10. Revisionist sewing is unpleasant. It has happened to me so many times I actually consider the stitch length before I start a tricky new project, thinking the longer stitches the shorter time to "revise" them. Despite the challenges, this quilt is beautiful! I love the colours and the pattern -- and now it has a story attached to it too!

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  11. Oh how I hate ripping out stitches. I think I would have left it years ago but now I have more time to myself I want things to look right and I would be picking it out too if I was not happy with it. Although I do not think it looked so bad. I came over to thank you for your sweet comment and pointing out that it is ok that I really did not get any sewing done. Ended up bring two of my grandsons home yesterday after the birthday party so still no sewing. Have a good PJ Sunday.

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