Sunday, October 16, 2011

Seam Ripper Sunday

After weeks of no sewing, today was THE day to get back into it.
I decided to start with the backing for the HST quilt, which needs a name but I think it's destined to be the HST quilt. Or that F^@#!^% quilt.
I had already made one strip with the left over HST's and decided to make two more for the backing.  Three strips of HST's later and some 2 1/2 inch sashing sewn between them, I put it on the floor to bask in the glory of my fabulous sewing. WTF, I had taken six straight strips of fabric and sewn them into a very curved piece that would have probably worked really well on a lampshade. Unfortunately no photos because I was so annoyed, I picked it up straight away and pulled out the seam ripper.
It looks like this now.
Not too bad but that was a total waste of an hour of my time. After that little setback it was time to try something else.

I shouldn't have bothered.

I want to make a quilt for some friends. The colours they like are grey/browns and orange. I used some Design Seed colour swatches as inspiration. I thought this would help because these are really not my go to colours.  This one below was one of the colour swatches I used.
Design Seeds


For the design I decided on another raw edge circle quilt as I really enjoyed making the last one.
I raided my stash and found some fabrics. I wanted to try popping a few batiks in there as I quite like the odd batik in amongst other fabrics. 
These are the background fabrics I chose. I liked the batiks but didn't like many of the other prints. The lighter browns are especially blech, way too light and shouldn't be in there at all. One teeny tiny problem I don't have enough fabric in the good colours to make the quilt and I really don't want to buy any more in these colours. 


Added in lots of oranges and then added the creams to help with more contrast for the foreground. By this stage I was thinking, either I'm a genius and this is going to be so freaking good, or I've totally lost my mind and I'm going to make the world's ugliest quilt. 

Time to make a test block. I could have picked all the nicest fabrics to make the first block to see how nice it could be or I could have picked the worst fabrics to see how bad it could be.  Which did I choose?  A sensible person would have said let's see how nice it could look. 

I'm not sensible. 

I really dislike it.

This was after I had measured to make sure one of the circles was dead centre of the square, sewed it up, took one look at it and pulled out the seam ripper again and promptly pulled it apart. Sorry no photos of my disasters. I really need to be more prepared with my camera to prove that I'm really crap at sewing sometimes a lot of the time. 

I wonder whether they would like a nice pink and aqua quilt instead.

That was my day, my sewing mojo returned but was missing some vital parts, common sense and accuracy.  I'm hoping they will turn up soon.
The only bright part of my day was that I wasn't the only one with a seam ripper as a constant companion.  Shay and I complained all day by email about our disastrous sewing attempts! It was nice to be able to swear (a lot) and know that Shay knew exactly how I felt.  I think we may have broken our own unofficial swear count today. We may have also invented some extra words too. It's amazing what spell checker will let through! Auto correct is not my best friend either, at one point, apparently I called her something very rude and very politically incorrect when I didn't check my email before I sent it. Fortunately, Shay is still talking to me. At least I think she is, hmm, I haven't heard from her in the last couple of hours!












15 comments:

  1. I hate seam ripper days - the only solution is to give up.

    Now, those are my colours you have picked for the new quilt - but the block not so much! I don't think the gray and brown are working together at all. Gray/Orange - lovely. Brown/Orange - lovely. Gray/Brown - yuck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It must be in the air, seems everyone is having those rip it, rip it moments today.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh dear! Well, we all have those days when the seam ripper is our best friend. I KNOW!!! Sometimes it seems to me that if I use it once, I use it a lot more on that day. A mistake never comes alone ;).
    But I love your HSTs as well as your circle blocks! Keep going!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I sympathise.....I didn't even get that far. I've had little sleep trying to come up with something that is not my thing either...finally the light bulb went on and I entered the sewing cave and then.... front door opened and the family arrived to say hi and watch the test with us. Still smiling really!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm so sorry about your seam ripper Sunday! We all have those days - so annoying.

    I quite like the group of fabrics you have put together so far. If it were me, I'd probably take out a few of the lighter browns and try adding a few deeper rusty oranges. What ever you do I know it will all work out great!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Occasionally I *think* it would be fun to stretch myself by playing in someone else's color scheme. I almost always end up remembering why that's a bad idea. I guess quilting is all about color for me and if the colors don't sing to me that quilt and I simply won't be friends.

    Your friends' favorite colors look pretty enough, but like you, I would have trouble with them, because I don't like them well enough to determine if what I've made is pretty or not. The block you shared really does look fine, but I can see why this project may be really tough if you decide to follow through.

    Oh and repeat after me: The seam ripper is my friend; the seam ripper is my friend; the seam ripper is my friend. LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I think Shevvy hit the nail - the brown & grey together isn't so good. At least you had a go today tho. All I have achieved is a couple of curtain hems.....

    ReplyDelete
  8. I still cant look at those strips of fabric of mine without cringing. It certainly wasn't a good day for either of us !

    Those are the days you should go read a book!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh seam ripper days! I sympathise with you! Color wise could you replace the grey with fabrics which are more blue- grey? This may not be possible but maybe after sleeping on it, a solution may have emerged! ??

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well despite your rotten day, you made me smile! We all have those days unfortunately and all too frequently. Maybe the sewing gods are telling us that we need to change something...who would know? Keep smiling...next sewing day will be better!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I've been doing a learning project with HSTs and QST so I've be using the seam ripper quite a bit too!
    I have faith in you. You always work it out and I've never seen a quilt of yours that I don't like. I personally think the big floral print in your block was the culprit but I'm only a novice to quilting and am very hesitant with my combinations. Perhaps you'll get some inspiration at the Quilt Show ( if you are going this week)
    Cheers
    PS. Behave yourselves up there this week - no newspaper headlines !

    ReplyDelete
  12. I can totally relate Marg. But call me crazy, I like the way your circle block is coming out. I say keep going, you might surprise yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh I'm hopeless at putting colours together - and these are not my colours either. I made a quilt for my sister in law in similar colours (You can find it here if it gives you any ideas)
    http://quiltova.blogspot.com/2011/03/perfect-day.html
    I'm not keen on it, but my s-i-l loves it.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I don't do seam rippers - I'm just not into quilting enough that if it goes wrong on the first attempt I would rip it apart and try again (maybe this is my problem lol) I'm just off to look at your second colour choice but I agree that the browns and greys are not really you (you're far too colourful a character and that shines through your quilting) you're certainly not a brown/grey personality. ps when I used to type comments on my phone, I would often hit the t instead of y for Shay and there were a few lucky escapes!!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I hate days like that. Your new fabric choices are going to be fabulous with the cirlce pattern.

    ReplyDelete

I love comments, so please leave a comment and please make sure you have reply email set up so I can reply to you.