Sunday, June 10, 2007

The Bad Quilt MeMe

I haven't done one of these in a long time and this one looked fun. Feel free to play along and don't forget to let me know so I can go see how bad a quilter you are too. :-)

I found this at The View from Here too which is a new-to-me blog. I enjoyed reading her archives. Not a lot of quilty content but a pleasant read. I'll visit again.

The items which apply to me are in bold italics.

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Made a quilt with no knowledge, no skills, and no understanding that either are needed

Created an abomination and (at the time) was proud of it

Created a quilt that was so hideous it made people or animals go blind

Had relatives throw a quilt you made outside in the muddy yard for the dogs to chew

Used severely mismatched fabric weights when piecing, for example, heavyweight denim and lightweight cotton

Didn’t pre-wash fabrics and later had them bleed all over the finished quilt

Used badly mismatched needle and bobbin thread

Puckered seams

Misaligned pieces

Ugly colours

Polyester fabrics that pilled (mine didn't pill)

Thick, scratchy polyester double knit fabrics

Batting that bearded up through the fabric

Free-motion quilting whose stitch size changed radically from stitch to stitch

Huge bird’s nests of bobbin thread that clogged the throat plate of the machine and broke the needle

Cluelessly attempted to stitch with a broken needle for several moments, thus perforating the quilt

Made stitches big enough to put your big toe through

Quilting lines that were about 6″ apart and allowed the stuffing to migrate and bunch up

Finished quilts that weren’t “square” and/or were badly blocked

Quilt tops that wouldn’t lay flat, that had a “volcano” in the middle or perceptible ripple

Backing that bunched up while quilting, leaving a portion of the batting uncovered

Hand-tied a quilt with heavy crochet or regular yarn, which required a really huge-eyed needle which left giant holes in the quilt

Erroneously equated a quilt with a blanket, and “finished” the edge of the quilt with a blanket stitch using scratchy acrylic yarn.

Had to use pliers to force the needle through the quilt, yet didn’t understand that this might be a sign that something was fundamentally wrong

Backed with a 100 thread count bed sheet. (Extra points for polyester)

Quilted with fishing line

Bled/sneezed/spilled coffee (iced tea) on a large section of quilt while making it.

Had people compare your quilt to one they saw at Wal-Mart

Finished a quilt (top) and only then realised that you hated it

Gave a quilt to someone and had them be speechless - and not in a good way

Trimmed loose threads on a gift quilt at the last minute and cut a hole through the top

Sewed one or more fingers to the quilt, then had to carry the sewing machine and quilt around the house while looking for a screwdriver to remove the needle

Created appliqués with satin-stitched edges, which after a shamefully brief time became frayed-edge appliqués that flapped their way free of the quilt
*******

Oh dear! in reading back over this it doesn't sound like I'm a very good quilter does it! At least some of those go back 35 years and I can plead much improvement in the meantime! But sadly some are very recent so I have a loooooooong way to go to perfection. But I'm having fun!!!

5 comments:

Pam said...

And once again Nancy and Pam have something in common...although I could add...
bled on a quilt
bearded batting
and a few other things....

This is what I say...
"we've come a long way baby!!"

Pam @
www.pamgwillim.com

Greenmare said...

I also have survived and alarming number of those things.......
yup, more live and learn moments

Greenmare said...

oh and by the way, I love all the kitty pictures!!!!!!!!!!

Judy H. said...

I'm so new to quilting (one finished quilt) that I can't really claim any of those, but I could add: cat puked on finished top!

PPH said...

Made several 'quilts' before a dear friend told me 2 things, use an iron and use pins, ahh what a difference...still horrible colour matching, puckering, never square, actually crooked, but hey, ironed and pinned...forgot some pins, found in middle of night.