ahem…ahem…I’ll be okay, just clearing my throat.  R I G H T.  There CAN be crying in quilting.  And, at least in my case, it’s usually because of nutty errors I’ve made and not something more unforgiving such as my sewing machine breaking down, I am on my last rotary cutter blade and have to literally cut apart my fabric with scissors, I ran out of thread and the nearest quilt shop that carries my thread is 45 minutes away, etc. etc.

This past Sunday, I was ready to hang it all up.  I had designed a lovely table runner and was going to use my signature sew-n-slash methods for making the blocks that would create the table runner.  I had already pulled out some fabric for this table runner so all that was left was to put a single block together and then, if it worked as I planned, I could create another seven blocks for the project.

My first snafu occurred when I sewed one color of strips incorrectly – so, the green was next to the purple but in my design, the WHITE was supposed to be next to the purple.  No worries, I quickly reexamined my blocks and decided I would rotate them – half with the green next to the purple and the other half with the white next to the purple.  It was all good, and would still look pretty.  And it did!  It all came together beautifully!

Snafu #2 happened when I sewed the second block – one of the strips of green was too short…I had sewn the strips in the wrong order.  I did a little ripping and figured I’d just sew an extension to that green strip and all would be good.  Unfortunately, I also did a little nipping and accidentally cut the white strip next to the green strip – no way was I going to make that square work now.  hrumph

Snafu #3 was when I realized I hadn’t pulled enough scraps out from my stash so I asked DD#2 to help me.  She did a great job and found more scraps that I could use, including one we made work.

I decided, instead of using my sew-n-slash method, I would use a foundation pieced method.  This meant I was able to lay out the strips, to be sure I sewed them all in the correct order but also that I had enough of the scraps to use.  Back to the drawing board…errr, stash baskets for my daughter!  And my snafu #4.

Ah yes, it couldn’t stop there now could it?  After a little break from it all, I went back and marked the strips onto the foundation piece.  Went to place the fabrics to measure for length and messed up the lines (needed 1/4″ more for each line) so ironed off the markings and re-measured.  Oh yes, I am sure you can see what’s coming!  Snafu #5 occurred when I started sewing the strips to the foundation and went to press them – I erased ALL of the other lines I’d drawn!  ARGH  (mental note:  if using a disappearing ink pen, be very, very careful!)

Once I redrew the lines, the sewing went pretty quickly – I was pleased with the ease of putting the blocks together.  Until Snafu #6 occurred where I once again didn’t gauge the length of a strip needed and ended up with a mess I was NOT going to fix.

I was done.

Turned off my machine and ironing board and left the whole mess for another day – when perhaps, I won’t cry anymore over my mistakes.