How precise/accurate do you try to be in your own work?
06-02-2014, 04:52 AM
#61
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Location: Davenport, Iowa
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I try to do the best that I can....sometimes I'm accurate and other times I fall short...but that is what a seam ripper is for!! I recall knowing that only God is perfect and figure that if I do things to the best of my abilities that He and Mom are smiling.
06-02-2014, 05:50 AM
#62
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Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 453
I started doing needle work (embroidery and doll cloths), long before I used my first sewing machine. I was taught that the back (of the embroidery), MUST look as nice as the front. My hand sewing MUST look as nice on the inside as the out. Last year when my mom passed away, I couldn't sew (I couldn't think, etc...). But I wanted to be with my sewing stuff (as I worked cleaning out her house - you know giving things away, throwing things away and packing things away), I found that items with a stain, rip, hole and who know what (as my mom would say - "I would die before I would let you even think about putting this in the trash" Her idea was not it shape to be given away, you couldn't let the trash man see it. So she would burn it. - lol). So being unable to sew, I sat at night when I couldn't sleep and cut and cut and cut. I cut stains out, pulled seams apart, cut holes out, etc... Did this to shirts, house coats, etc..... And I have just started sewing lap quilts for each of her grand-kids. The t-shirts and towels turned into beds and blankets for the animal shelter (she loved animals and I donated most of her stuff to the animal shelter thrift store in Yuma), it helps fund shot clinics. But I still followed the you make everything look "NEW and STORE BOUGHT". She grew up very poor so homemade was the norm then and "Store Bought", was something special (not now, but at one time).
06-02-2014, 05:54 AM
#63
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Chapel Hill
Posts: 1,086
I try to be as accurate as possible, especially in the early steps because it makes the rest of the blocks then top come together more easily.
My son spent last night cutting strips for this first quilt. Of the 30, there was not 1 "v" shaped strip in the set. I told him I was very impressed with that accomplishment. Now I he can slow down while piecing, he will be set. He got his free - "Mom rips out the seam" last night - the fabric slipped so there were parts where it was held on by about three threads and not at all lined up - otherwise I would have had him simply sew the seam next to it.
Cheers, K
My son spent last night cutting strips for this first quilt. Of the 30, there was not 1 "v" shaped strip in the set. I told him I was very impressed with that accomplishment. Now I he can slow down while piecing, he will be set. He got his free - "Mom rips out the seam" last night - the fabric slipped so there were parts where it was held on by about three threads and not at all lined up - otherwise I would have had him simply sew the seam next to it.
Cheers, K
06-02-2014, 06:24 AM
#65
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Jeffersonville, In
Posts: 2,621
I've heard that Amish story too and always chuckled. I don't need to purposely put i a mistake, no need to try. I try to be accurate but subscribe to "Finished is better than perfect" rule.
Originally Posted by jo bauer
Apocryphal stories have it that the Amish purposely put a mistake in their quilts to show that only God is perfect. I've alway laughed at that idea--no need to put in a deliberate mistake; I make enough of them to prove He is the only perfect one around here. I, as most quilters and sewers do, try my best to make a lovely piece. However, I do have a private rule: If the fix doesn't work the third time after a serious bout with my best friend, the seam ripper, I leave the missed point, corner, crooked seam or whatever in the project and just get on with it. I agree with "better finished than perfect or another UFO wandering around."
06-02-2014, 06:59 AM
#66
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Sonoma County, CA
Posts: 4,299
One of my grandmothers used to put a humility block or two into a lot of her quilts. (I don't actually think she called them that; the family calls them "special" blocks.) Not quilts she was making for show, but ones she was making for family, mostly. Sometimes it'd be something like a single pinwheel block built going the other way, or maybe one pair of "legs" on a pinwheel would have a subtle print instead of being solid like the rest; stuff like that. It was fun hunting for the special block on the quilts, often it was very subtle and you had to really look to find it. And if you couldn't find it you never knew if there just wasn't one in that quilt, or if it was just so sneaky you hadn't found it yet.
To me that was a sign of extra skill...she was so good she could hide an irregularity right under your nose! My sister & I were often given matching quilts, we could usually only tell them apart by finding those special blocks. Unfortunately most of her quilts that I was given did not survive...my sister & I used the heck out of those quilts. They were capes and fort walls and escape ropes and parachutes...they only live on in pictures and in our memories now but that's a great place for a quilt to live!
To me that was a sign of extra skill...she was so good she could hide an irregularity right under your nose! My sister & I were often given matching quilts, we could usually only tell them apart by finding those special blocks. Unfortunately most of her quilts that I was given did not survive...my sister & I used the heck out of those quilts. They were capes and fort walls and escape ropes and parachutes...they only live on in pictures and in our memories now but that's a great place for a quilt to live!
06-02-2014, 07:28 AM
#68
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Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 903
I do the best I can, will fix what I think I can. There are some types of matches that I really struggle with, and will let some of that go as I know that I'm my own worst critic and no one else will ever notice a mismatch. I've also been working my way through a precision piecing book, and for those blocks, I will redo until it is as perfect as I can make it - I will work on that when I am in the mood for all of that pickiness. Most day to day points that aren't quite pointy, or seams that don't quite match - are pretty hard to spot when the quilt is finished.
06-02-2014, 11:46 AM
#69
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Texas
Posts: 2,369
Great post, bearisgray!
Your mom's rules were my rules when I made all my own clothes, and occasionally clothes for others. I especially NEVER wasted fabric if I could help it....even if I had no idea what I was going to do with the scraps. That practice stood me in good stead when, for my son's wedding, I made four boys' vests out of 2 yards of woven-to-order tartan fabric for which I paid about $80 a yard!
When I first began quiltmaking I was not as careful, I think, about either the 1/4 inch seam or seam matching as I am now, mostly out of ignorance. Now, I'm a fanatic about seam matching and have mastered, more or less, the 1/4" seam. But I'm still intimidated by HSTs and points drive me crazy. Mastering this hobby is a process, I've discovered.
My own mother didn't sew but she was a perfectionist in everything else she did, including laundry and ironing (maybe because she worked in a laundry), and cleaning. Growing up under that kind of edict, one becomes, I think, either a perfectionist her/himself or rebels and goes the "whatever works" way....which is all right, too. I don't pass judgment, since everyone is entitled to their own rules, way of doing, and end result. And because, frankly, doing the "as well as one could" thing is a real pain sometimes!
And I agree about the jeans. I grew up when torn and faded clothes meant something other than Fashion Statement, and yes, the faded and torn need to be earned.
Your mom's rules were my rules when I made all my own clothes, and occasionally clothes for others. I especially NEVER wasted fabric if I could help it....even if I had no idea what I was going to do with the scraps. That practice stood me in good stead when, for my son's wedding, I made four boys' vests out of 2 yards of woven-to-order tartan fabric for which I paid about $80 a yard!
When I first began quiltmaking I was not as careful, I think, about either the 1/4 inch seam or seam matching as I am now, mostly out of ignorance. Now, I'm a fanatic about seam matching and have mastered, more or less, the 1/4" seam. But I'm still intimidated by HSTs and points drive me crazy. Mastering this hobby is a process, I've discovered.
My own mother didn't sew but she was a perfectionist in everything else she did, including laundry and ironing (maybe because she worked in a laundry), and cleaning. Growing up under that kind of edict, one becomes, I think, either a perfectionist her/himself or rebels and goes the "whatever works" way....which is all right, too. I don't pass judgment, since everyone is entitled to their own rules, way of doing, and end result. And because, frankly, doing the "as well as one could" thing is a real pain sometimes!
And I agree about the jeans. I grew up when torn and faded clothes meant something other than Fashion Statement, and yes, the faded and torn need to be earned.
Last edited by QuiltnNan; 12-01-2014 at 04:17 AM. Reason: language
06-02-2014, 11:56 AM
#70
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: MN
Posts: 24,424
Originally Posted by Sewnoma
One of my grandmothers used to put a humility block or two into a lot of her quilts. (I don't actually think she called them that; the family calls them "special" blocks.) Not quilts she was making for show, but ones she was making for family, mostly. Sometimes it'd be something like a single pinwheel block built going the other way, or maybe one pair of "legs" on a pinwheel would have a subtle print instead of being solid like the rest; stuff like that. It was fun hunting for the special block on the quilts, often it was very subtle and you had to really look to find it. And if you couldn't find it you never knew if there just wasn't one in that quilt, or if it was just so sneaky you hadn't found it yet.
To me that was a sign of extra skill...she was so good she could hide an irregularity right under your nose! My sister & I were often given matching quilts, we could usually only tell them apart by finding those special blocks. Unfortunately most of her quilts that I was given did not survive...my sister & I used the heck out of those quilts. They were capes and fort walls and escape ropes and parachutes...they only live on in pictures and in our memories now but that's a great place for a quilt to live!
To me that was a sign of extra skill...she was so good she could hide an irregularity right under your nose! My sister & I were often given matching quilts, we could usually only tell them apart by finding those special blocks. Unfortunately most of her quilts that I was given did not survive...my sister & I used the heck out of those quilts. They were capes and fort walls and escape ropes and parachutes...they only live on in pictures and in our memories now but that's a great place for a quilt to live!
I definitely do NOT need to make any "deliberate mistakes" on any of the items I make. I do quite well with "unintentional errors"! Although I now do not see a need to point them out to everyone else!
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