Monday, January 3, 2011

I tried...

I really like the Mug Rugs, Mug Mates, Tiny Placemats, whatever you want to call them, and yesterday afternoon I thought it would be neat to make one using some scraps from the quilt I am working on. I thought I could make one to send to my husband's Aunt Carol because I know she drinks coffee, and she just sent us an unexpected subscription to Better Homes and Gardens! I just thought it would be nice to send her something special!
Well - it won't be THIS, that's for sure!

I'm just disgusted because it didn't turn out anything like I had planned - I put together these really cute little flying geese style blocks, then made a neat little border around them...

I sandwiched it like a quilt, but I used some fusible fleece that I had leftover from a purse project I had worked on years ago. (I don't have any regular batting on hand) I fused the fleece to the backing fabric, in hopes that it would help reduce puckering... well - I wish I had fused it to the front! Although I pinned liberally, it didn't work out well... and since I don't have a quilting foot for my machine, I couldn't do an all-over free form design... it just didn't turn out well.
I got this puckered, sloppy-edged, cruddy-looking THING, and it just isn't anything I would feel comfortable giving to anyone! I didn't even bind the darn thing because I don't want to waste any more time or fabric on it. Ugh. I was very frustrated, and now I don't have a nice mug-mate to send Mike's Aunt. Take a look - it's horrendous!

It didn't even turn out EVEN - I had to trim it up to make it LOOK even... and then I gave up - there's no fixing this monster... I might use it in my sewing room to remind me to find out the proper way to do something before jumping in head first!



I was frustrated, but still feeling like I wanted to productive (somehow)... so I decided to clean out my sewing 'catch-all' drawer. There were some very random zippers in there, and I remembered seeing a really cute little pouch tutorial recently and I thought I might try to make one - following the directions! The tutorial I used is by Anna over at Noodlehead, and there really are a lot of cute things there! I'm sure I'll use her tutorials often!


I like the way it turned out.

Glad to see something come together the right way!

4 comments:

Sarabeth Hudson said...

Very cute pouch!!

Fabricmom said...

You poor thing. We can't learn from our mistakes if we don't make any. :) Maybe you could hand quilt the puckered areas and it won't look so puckered. That is the only thing I can think of. At least it was just a small project and not a huge wall hanging or something. My first big quilt turned out awful. I didn't pay attention to the seam allowance. Needless to say it is still folded up in the closet not quilted. That was 6 years ago. Oh love the zipper pouch. I haven't tried one yet.

Anonymous said...

What if you just did straight lines evenly across the whole thing or at an angle. And trim your border down and then add another border to it? And then rather than bind it, add a back to it, right sides together and then turn it right side out? And top stitch? I think you can save it...it's too cute.

libbydibby said...

that IS cute! love the little loop off the side.
too bad I just finished another batch of 12 pouches tonight - or I'd incorporate loops into mine.

I think I am done with pouches for a while.
(haha)

did you want some scraps? lemme know and I'll mail a few to you!