Monday, March 17, 2008

Serendipity


It was a dark and stormy long and frustrating weekend. Last week, I THOUGHT my quilt was ready to be layered and basted, in preparation for quilting. However, as soon as I tried to smooth the top over the stretched backing and batting, it became abundantly clear that the borders were cut too small. In my efforts to prevent a wavy border (a far too frequent problem I encounter), I over-compensated - grrrr - and made the borders far shorter than they should have been.

Of course, this meant that the interior of the quilt pooched out. While it is possible to ease a little bit of excess fabric in the machine quilting process, the amount of bulge I had was far too much to safely quilt out.

Needless to say, there were copious tears shed, a few expletives uttered, temporary denial expressed, more than a little stomping and door slamming and finally the onset of a monster migraine as a result. While I was disgusted with the mistake I had made and irritated by the fact that I didn't have enough fabric left to re-do the border, what was most disheartening was the reality that I had at least 8 hours of ripping and re-sewing ahead of me.

After some migraine medications and a little cooling off period, I launched into a marathon ripping session, which included quite a bit of time spent picking loose threads from ripped seams and vacuuming up the resulting mess. Unsewing is a very untidy process, especially when you have 12 long seams to be taken back out. Ugggh.

Then I headed out to the local quilt shop to find a new border fabric. The first shop I visited had a few things that might have worked but I wasn't 100% satisfied with any of them. So I headed over to another local quilt shop. I have to say that the customer service at this shop was superb. I had three sales people converge on me as I entered, spread out the quilt on the cutting table and then scatter to search for fabric. Within 5 minutes, we had found the perfect fabric for the border.

To say that this fabric is better than the original border would be an understatement of epic proportions. I LOVE the new border. A better color match couldn't have been found without dying the fabric myself. I bought a little extra to use for pillow shams and may have to go back for more for pillow cases and/or a bed skirt. I am so thrilled with the new border that I'm actually a little glad that I messed up the original borders.

It just goes to show you that every cloud has a silver lining. And trust me, this cloud was a big, black, stormy one that managed to produce one glorious silver lining.

Now I call that Serendipity - with a big "S"!

7 comments:

livnletlrn said...

Wow -- I had to click for the big pic before I could believe that this border fabric wasn't one of the fabrics in those log cabin blocks. From afar, it IS a perfect complement. Up close, it's stunningly beautiful and truly mind-boggling how well it works with the fabrics in the blocks. Ugh for the seam ripping, but YAHOO for the results!

Sheepish Annie said...

It was meant to be! Although I certainly would have wished you an easier journey towards Serendipity...

Guinifer said...

I must admit, I'd rather rink than rip seams.

Carrie said...

It's looking fabulous!

Carissa said...

The new border looks fantastic! Sorry that you had to rip the old one out before you found this one! I really dislike ripping myself!

Rani said...

Will you enter this in the State Fair? It's gorgeous! I don't know how you do it. WOW.

Shirley Goodwin said...

Looks like a great match!