I decided that I’d like to make a lap quilt for my Mum. I chose a paper-pieced block that looked to be well within my capabilities, but I’m really struggling! Do you ever have a project that just seems to be jinxed? Anything I could do wrong I have: sewing the fabric on the wrong way round, getting the fabric doubled over, cutting off the wrong piece of paper..... at one point the needle even fell out of the sewing machine! Each block has 4 sections: I got 2 sections together and they wouldn’t line up. Three days and I haven’t even completed one block! And there are 30 in the quilt.... If I don’t manage to get the first one completed today, it’s back to the drawing board.

our local landfill is decorated by my jinxed projects. :lol:

Lol.

So sorry about your frustration. Good luck!

Yep Me too! I've got one right now that I decided enough is enough. Its a 6 year old ufo and it over! It has had bad quilting mojo from the start. Piecing was a nightmare, I choose homespun not understanding its worse than trying to sew two live snakes together. Two sewing machines broke during its construction, broken needles, missed stitches, puckers, if something could go wrong it has. So I decided last week I was gonna finish it and be done. Its not meant to be, Immediately the thread in my machine starts fraying, the bobbin area gets a jam of thread. Throwing in the towel on this one. I'm having a fire tonight outside and this quilt is going in it! The funny thing is I started making this quilt for my ex-husband. The pattern was called Carrie Nation. Well just like my marriage to him, it was more drama than I wanted in my life.

OH YES!!I decided to make the quilt called Flying Kamona from the ModaBakeshop.The instructions were not very clear.Even though I have been sewing for more than 60 years this one got to me.I carfully sewed my 2 1/2 strips together and cut them at the 45 degree as the pattern said being carfull not to stretch the strips. Needless to say , It still came out wonky.So I ripped them apart.represed using my 45 degree ruler.Still having trouble. so I printed off the pattern on freezer paper and used it to paper piece the strips. It works!!!!

Yep! I'm working on one now that I am methodically UNsewing 11 blocks for at least the second time. When I re-sewed one of them last night and squared up the block I managed to lop off too much on one side - I'm still not sure how, I was very careful - so now we're in the 1/8" seam allowance territory. I HOPE.

This thing is about to become a dog blanket. I'll send my college-bound niece a box of microwave popcorn and a check.

YES! and it always seems that the ones that I want to be a little more perfect than usual always have the most mistakes. I mean..I can sit and whip one up for no reason and it doesn't have a slipped stitch one. But if I'm making one for someone special...grrr... How does it do that??!

Oh Lea, thankyou for the laugh! I think that quilt is trying to tell you that that part of your life is definitely over!

Yes, sometimes the quilt isn't done but I am soooooo done with that quilt! If it can't be repurposed into something else, I send it to the secondhand shop. I figure maybe someone else can save it and I have no guilt about letting it go.

I've had plenty of jinxed projects!

Good luck, hope you can get this project sorted out!
:)

Just finished the quilt top from h*ll. Three re-designs and my total inability to cut the right dimension and sew right sides together. I don't like the colors. But I will sandwich it today and get my quilting done which will of course be a nightmare. This is a wedding quilt for a co-worker - I am sure he will like it but right now could care less if he does. This is what he is getting!

My row robin was a bugger from the start. It's as if I had never sewn a 1/4" seam in my life. EACH block was the wrong size. From 1/2" too small to 1/2" too big. I took them apart and resewed them. SAME THING. Ended up recutting and resewing everything - one block TWICE. What a nightmare.

Yes, two blocks I was working on last weekend... I finally gave up LOL :D:D:D

Oh yes! I have a mystery quilt that my quilt group is working on that just doesn't want to be sewn. I am sick of looking at it and sicker of picking it out. The kicker is that the piecing isn't even very complex.

perhaps the the pieces of paper are drawn incorrectly

Julia

Yes and sometimes its the "easy " ones!!! I have started to learn just as Eleanor Burns would say "get rid of em" she generally uses that phrase for scraps and tosses them over her shoulder... but I have adopted the phrase for those projects that are indeed jinxed from the start. Oh sometimes if its a big project I toss it into a box to give it a "time out" and till it or I behave it will not come out.

LMAO Oh yeah for sure, matter of fact, I just finished my Wolf Song quilt, it is now hanging on my design wall all quilted and waiting for the binding, but I have to say that this quilt is cursed for sure, if anything could go wrong it did......but it's pieced and quilted and ready for binding...some will remember me talking about fixes along the way..... :lol:

I pass them on or rethink it.

I'm feeling so much better after reading all your replies! Right - I'm off to try again and see if I can get a bit further this evening....

Here's the block that's caused such grief. THREE DAYS it's taken me to get this far! Only 29 to go... (oh, and before you think you have some bad news to break to me - yes, the 4th corner is supposed to be terracotta!)

Been there, done that. I made a retreat quilt and I picked out way too busy fabric, but I went ahead. You had to buy a special ruler to make it, but the blocks wouldn't come out square with that ruler, so I had to resize about 500 blocks. When I got done, the quilt is just too busy. Scrappy, but not scrappy. My LAQ did a wonderful job on the quilting. I am sorry I had to make her work on such an awful quilt. The first person who says they like the quilt will get it.

Oh my gosh that block is beautiful. You did a great job. I can't wait to see the finished quilt.

Thankyou - but at the current rate of progress, don't hold your breath :-)

Mine like that end up as scrappy quilts

I've added two orphan blocks to my collection so far...

usually call a sewing gal pal and we muddle through what i'm doing wrong. usually involves a bottle of wine.

I have had plenty of those projects. Especially paper pieced. I have never got the hang of that. Even had a teacher stand over me and still couldn't do it!

Well I did it! I burned that quilt last night, it took all I had to give up on it. And guess who called at 2 am drunk? He needs Carrie Nation.

..so even if you can't sort it out, you don't care any more?! :-)

Well done Lea! Sounds like that quilt became a great symbol of the cleaning out and moving on that you've obviously been doing in your life. All the best to you.

I ESPECIALLY can't do something if I have a teacher standing over me!

I'm cross about thinking I had run out of material for a project - only to discover the pattern wasted half of it by cutting down the blocks to a finished size.If I had realised what the finished sizes should have been then I would have had enough...it's languishing under the bed...

Yes, I say take your time. I found out a couple of weeks ago when I joined one fo the bOM clubs that has lots of paper piecing, that it's easier to do it by hand than by machine. I find it relaxing and can take it with me in the living room where my hubby is watching tv. It really goes much faster for me and more accurate.

I am working on the Hoopsisters mystery quilt. The week 5 blocks are giving me fits. They are the hardest blocks in the quilt.( Not really that hard) If there is a stupid mistake I can make I have made it. Cutting pieces too short, putting on the wrong fabric. You name it I have done it. I finally got all 8 blocks finished and realized I had reversed 2 fabrics. So now I am remaking all 8 blocks. It was the background fabric so it really shows. GRRRRRR! I have 4 done. I am forcing myself to finish the quilt.

Not just me then!! I feel much better!

Oh yes! I had so much trouble with it. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong - with the fabric, the machine, the thread, you name it. I even put it away for several months and then tried again. Same thing! When finally finished - and it was just a crib quilt, mind you - I stashed it in a drawer. I am afraid to give it away as I don't want to pass on bad vibes. lol

Really appreciate the laughs this morning! I inherited a UFO, the blocks didn't even lay flat - I finally decided 5 years years of feeling guilty every time I spotted it in with my stash was enough penance (for what I don't know) and out in the trash it went!

At my house they are called " a Jonah" and I throw them overboard. froggyintexas

This tends to happen to me when I pp! Takes me awhile to get back into the grove of doing it. Guess that's why I don't do it much, lol... Just do one block at a time, is my best advice.

Oh yes -- I have seen this!! I did a QAYG that would not -- I spray basted the backing and batting and the backing (yes it was washed) rippled. I spent 2 weeks making a table runner that I have done in 1 evening. The difference -- this was a gift I wanted just so (should I mention that I had special fabric and had to resize the blocks because I had ripped so much) and the others were slapped together (with no problems at all). I started over, altered it, pieced it and then quilted it -- I was not as happy with it, but it worked and she loved it.