Ripping out stitches builds character...and also rage.

I really, REALLY need to learn to pay more attention to things when I'm sewing and not be so danged persnickety. Yeah, yeah, I know...easier said than done.

So I'm doing a quilt from a pattern called "Wednesday" (I can't find a picture of it for you but I assure you it's super cute), which is meant to showcase a large-scale print. Clearly I had to do this in Halloween...I mean, hey, even the pattern called for Halloween fabrics. You know I'm more than happy to oblige :-)

So I'm using Alexander Henry's line, The Ghastlies to make it all up. I LOVE that fabric.. That little girl with the hammer just cracks me up. But the quilt I'm doing (pictures up soon, once I rip it all out...ugh) is gray, pink, black and green. It sounds odd for Halloween, I know, but click on the link and you'll see why!

Aaaaanyway, so last night I'm just stitching away and I'm putting everything together and I realize "&*%#! The center strip is too big in a weird way!" So I'm sitting there pinning like a madwoman trying to force this pice to fit with the two  large upper and lower blocks lining up in the center of the middle block in the strip. Well sta-hoo-pid me, they weren't supposed to, and I realized this AFTER pinning, sewing and assembling the quilt to the point of having the last border halfway on.

Damn. It. Damn it. Dammit.

So, erroneously thinking I'd have a completed quilt top this afternoon to give to Frances to quilt for me, I will instead be spending my afternoon ripping out multiple looooong seams and finishing it tonight. Oh, and did I mention I cut the long sides for last border from my [very directional] border fabric last night out twice, so now I don't have enough to do the short sides without getting more fabric?

You know, perhaps I shouldn't be quilting and watching Gangland at the same time late at night. lol. Ah well, I see this as a good, patience building exercise (albeit a frustrating one!)

Why yes, I DO know better. But that, my friends, doesn't mean diddly.

So yeah. My machine hates me. Which, by "my machine hates me," I actually mean I totally screwed it up myself. User error.

I know better than to sew over pins, which is why I always take them out before my needle goes over them. who am I kidding? I don't. I leave them there...like most imperfect quilters (is there such a thing as a perfect quilter? Ooh, quilting existentialism). But in the back of my brain I know that there is a risk of breaking a needle or the pin if the the needle actually hitis the pin. apparently it's way back there in the back.

To the untrained eye, it looks like I'm being a diligent machine owner and cleaning my machine after using it. Yeah, that beast gets duuuuusty. I wish I could say that this is why I have got everything dismantled. Alas, I ran over a pin and the unexpected happened....

See that? Yeah, the pin didn't break like one would expect it to, and nor did the needle....The damn thing sucked itself into the feed dogs and got itself crimped and stuck therein. You should have heard the noise. It was ugly. I think my roomate dang near jumped out of her skin, because there she was minding her own business, watching Futurama, and KA-CHING-CRUNCH - pin, meet feed dogs, they want to devour you.

So what is the moral of this story? You probably shouldn't run over your pins. Will I run over my pins again/still? You betcha. But I will change my needle and watch things a little more closely.

Somewhere out in the wild and weird world of the interwebs, there's a Quilt Police Officer taking down my number so they can smack me upside the head with a ruler.