Told you…… Same place, today.
I am very happy to announce the first give away of my company!! Or, let's say it this way: my first give away as a designer!!
It's kind of funny when I have to talk about me or my company. Confusing?? Well, as some of you may know (and for the ones who doesn't know it), I am one of the few in this industry that is the owner of a textile company and designer of all the fabric lines at the same time. Did you arrive at the same conclusion that I do every day? LOTS OF WORK!! :) Another conclusion? TOTAL FREEDOM!! The most obvious conclusion? THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD!! I loooooove what I do and everyday I get up convinced that I was born for this…
As I told you yesterday, I wanted this give away to be very exciting. That's why I am giving two 50 FAT QUARTER BUNDLES prizes.
Oh, yes! My babies will be so happy to find a new home and be along with other fabrics in the stash of the new owners….
Remember I told you yesterday to be ready to laugh??
I have a question for you and the two most funny answers will win:
WHAT WAS THE MOST FUNNY/WEIRD SITUATION THAT YOU HAVE HAD AT YOUR SEWING ROOM WHEN ABOUT TO START SEWING?
I am sure many of you will have a great time and laugh when reading all the comments.
Please be sure to include your email address in your comment so, if you win, the babies can go home with you…
I will live comments/answers open until March 12, so be sure to post your answer before that date to win!
And this is just my first give away… I have many more coming up!
So subscribe, subscribe, subscribe to my blog to be the first one to know about more free fabric, free patterns, random cash prizes and many more cool and inspiring ideas (like video tutorials) that I will put here in the coming months….
You see, I want everybody to know ART GALLERY Fabrics and experience (like all sewers and quilters say) the pleasure to sew on my premium quality cotton brand.
Now, I think I wrote enough; so now it's your turn. So give me your best answers!
Handmade rocks… So keep on stitching!
Patricia
Art Gallery Fabrics - The Creative Blog 
257 responses to “100 FAT QUARTERS GIVE AWAY!”
the very strangest thing would have to be when I found a giant ten-inch millipede coiled around my sewing machine light! the millipede was a pet (yeah, i’m a weird one) and had escaped the day before; I guess it climbed up into the machine because I’d been sewing all that day and it was nice and warm — I was glad to find it, but it was definitely a surprise!
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I have so many stories as I have been sewing since I was 12 and am now in my early 40s!!!! Scarey I know!!! but a few stick in my mind and I guess the funniest would be while I was on a stint making shirts for us girls in the family as I had struck gold with quite an easy pattern (very 70s), I was about 15 I got impatient and wanted to finish, (which I know you should never do) I gathered the fabric to sew and at the end of the seam realised I had sewn in my skirt too!! It was a full 3 tiered gypsy skirt that mum had actually made me, very full so I didn’t even feel it was gathered up when I picked up the shirt and just started sewing in a flurry! I still sew when I know I am too rushed/tired etc but haven’t had that happen again!!!! Love your site and your fabric looks fab!!!
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The funniest experience in my sewing corner was when the machine continued to sew even when I was not pushing the foot control. It was almost spooky until I realized the motor brushes were worn out and needed replacing. The same day I was in a class on sewing for master sewing teachers –I embarrasingly sewed the pants pocket to the hem of the pants. Oops!!
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I was still getting the hang of my new sewing machine, so I was intently sewing and re-sewing, trying to figure out why my thread kept bunching. We have 2 cats and my husband had taught one of them to jump on his shoulders. From the counter, from the floor. So as I am staring at my machine, swearing, and getting ready to call the sewing machine repair store, a cat lands on my shoulders. He had been on the shelf behind me. I screamed. The cat howled. Sank his claws in my shoulders. I was so startled I fell backwards out of my chair, pulling the fabric with me. My husband runs in the room, sees me sprawled out on the floor, and the cat grooming himself in the corner like nothing had happened! So, I got up, only slightly embarrassed about falling out of a chair because of a cat attack, and I rethreaded my machine because it had come undone in the fall. Turns out that’s what was wrong – and the one thing I hadn’t tried! I was able to sew along just fine after that, well, with occasional glances over my shoulder of course!
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My story involves my boyfriend. He wanted me to teach him how to hem his own pants (I think he was fed up with waiting for me to get around to it!). Having never sewn before, I showed him how to pin and measure the hems, how to thread the machine and sew the seam. However, the first time he tried to do this on his own, I was out of town. I got a frantic message from him saying that he was really sorry, but that he had broken my sewing machine! I was not particularly worried (knowing that most things can be repaired) and told him not to panic, that I take a look at it when I got back. The next message I got from him said not to worry, that he had replaced my sewing machine! This left me thinking that not only was he a little crazy, but that he must have really done a good job of breaking the old one!
When I got back into town, I sat down at my machine to see what the damage was. It turned out that my boyfriend had broken the needle!
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It’s hard to beat Roseanna’s story about her and her affair with Pfaff!
My story is about sewing in general as I didn’t have a sewing room when this happened – does this count?
I have stayed away from sewing for most of my adult life as I learned in grade school home ec that I am simply UNABLE to cut fabric straight. It’s a running joke in my family how I tried to make a tote bag and ended up with a coin purse (a small one!) as my inept cutting skills mangled the fabric so much that my grandma ended up cutting it for me. So hurray for rotary cutters and the emery circles you put on acrylic rulers!!!
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So many good ones. Well My funny store is that quite some time ago while I was sewing my purses I would go into the sewing room to sew and everything on my table was messed up. Strange. Ok put it back in order. Then it happened a few more times. I still couldn’t figure out why in the world the fabric was all messed up! Finally when I walked into my room there sat Tiny, my little min pin, (my dog have no cats in the house)just looking at me as if “what?” on my sewing table. She had made herself a bed so she could see out the window! I could see a cat doint that but a dog? She was lucky she never got any pins in her. Little stinker. Well now I have it so she doesnt do that anymore.
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Hi, I’m a newbie to sewing — just finished my 1st couple of projects and now I’m hooked! Looking forward to reading your blog for inspirations and tutorials!
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I was trying to perfect my curves following your Belle Epoque Garden quilt pattern when I heard a knock at my sewing room window. I opened the window to find three little green men who very politely explained that they crash landed in my backyard and, seeing my Bernina 440 QE through the window, knew I could help. In English punctuated with buzzes and clicks, they communicated that they travel by manipulating the Warp and Weft of the Universe (not to be confused with the Fabric of Time). But they took the wrong left at the corner by my local quilt shop, and couldn’t find their way back to the wormhole (apparently, even if they’re little, green, and have antennae, men still refuse to ask for directions). They begged me to sew a topological impossibility for them (Euler characteristic of pi) which, like piecing a Lone Star quilt, looks really complicated, but it’s not so bad if you use Jan Krentz’s strip piecing method. They said that if I sewed the topological impossibility for them, they could transport their broken spaceship home through the resulting wormhole and darn the hole in spacetime from their side.
I sat down at my Bernina 440 QE to start sewing the first set of strips for the topological impossibility together when I was struck by the idea that if I just made a few subtle tweaks I could alter the alien design so that it would not only function as a topological impossibility but would totally make the coziest, cuddliest, cutest throw pillow EVER! I knew I would have to break all the rules (quarter inch seam be damned!). I would have to alter the design on the fly, right there, as I was sewing, because it was only at that moment that I would be able to keep the trick to its execution in my head. I dropped the presser foot and put my foot on the pedal. I could see it all laid out before me.
Then my Gingham cat Ripper (short for Seam Ripper) started batting the strips as they moved through the machine in his typical “one, two, THREE WITH CLAW!” pattern, taking the whole thing with the third strike. You see the pattern coming, and yet, it’s always too fast to react to. Next he spied the pile of strips I had meticulously stacked in the order I had to sew them for the topological impossibility/coziest, cuddliest, cutest throw pillow ever. Thinking he could make them move like the strips I was sewing, he hopped onto the sewing table and scattered the strips everywhere.
The End
(This story is fictional. I don’t own a cat.)
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Well, hopefully this counts even though it was a sewing room in a foreign land that I was just borrowing. I spent a few months in South Africa a few years ago, and the little house I was staying in didn’t have any screens on the window. Once bug season started, this was a major issue since as soon as we turned on the lights we got swarmed. My roommate and I had the bright idea to make some curtains with weighted hems to try to stem the tide.
We got back from the grocery store and I walked into her sewing room to get started with some muslin that she had left over. Unfortunately, a couple of baboons had managed to get the grill off the window that we’d left open and they’d wrecked the place. I know it was two of them because when I ran to the window I saw them speeding off into the sunset, one flying about a yard of purple fabric behind him and the other with Izzie’s favorite stuffed bear tucked under his arm like a football. We spent the next three hours straightening the sewing room out, then decided we never wanted to walk in there again. From then on we just kept the lights out at all times so we wouldn’t attract moths.
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This is from when I was a kid and had just learned to sew. I decided I would make myself a halter top. All the rage in the 70’s you know. Well, I took a very small piece of fabric and attached binding to it for straps. I tied it around my back and around my neck. I thought it was lovely, so much so that I immediately ran out into the back yard and started doing cartwheels in my beautiful new top. Need I go on? Yes, the not very well constructed top flew off and I was standing in the backyard half naked with the neighbor boy staring at me. Good thing there wasn’t much to stare at back then. I never wore the top again. :)
greenbagladyteresa(at)gmail(dot)com
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Yes I have sewn things inside out or sewn wrong sections together, but the funniest was having to chase a dog around the house several times to retrieve my fake fur fabric that I was making stuffed animals out of. It seems the dog thought it was his chew toy because it was made out of the same fabric. I really can’t blame the dog for that. But he wore me out chasing after him.
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This is a tough one. I would have to say trying to sew and nurse my toddler? I was trying to multi-task!!!
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When I was an impatient little girl heavy into 4-H and had three or four years of sewing experience (with my mom looking over my shoulder to slow me down) I had a new project to complete. It was the 80’s and all the ruffles and knit were in so I had a skirt with three ruffles and a long sleeve shirt with one ruffle and I was so excited – I always won awards for my sewing so this would be amazing!Even though my mom had told me to wait for her, in my pre-teen wisdom I thought I could do it without her. So I cut out the pattern and started sewing only to tear holes in the garmet EVERY TIME I started to sew (I was going to fast, wrong tension, etc…). When my mom arrived home from work she was so mad that I ruined all that fabric that she shipped me off to my grandma’s with new fabric and the pattern, who I had never heard yell at me to that point. That all changed that day – she was so frustrated with me that she was being very stern and yelling. My grandfather went out the patio door and back through the front door just to avoid her (and me) when he need to use the restroom. In the end the project was finished – I won very high marks and did very well BUT to this day that is the ONLY time I have seen my grandfather avoid a room because he was afraid of what would happen if he entered it! Oh I should mention he is an ex-marine…We laugh about this now but I was not allowed to sew at my grandparent’s house again!
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My funniest sewing moment came when I was making a quilt for my best friend’s 30 birthday. It was an appliqued wallhanging with embroidery in the borders, and it turned out quite nicely. However, I either got busy or didn’t allow quite enough time because the day of her party, I hadn’t quite finished the binding. The restaurant was an hour away, so my husband drove and I sewed in the car. I wasn’t finished when we arrived. The restaurant was attached to a mall, so I found a quiet corner with a couch in a Talbot’s store and kept sewing. We were early enough, so I sewed binding for another half hour. I did finish it, crammed it into the gift bag and stuffed in the tissue on top, just in time to meet everyone for dinner. Whew!
To the pocohontos story on the (currently) first page of comments: That is hilarious! I’m glad you made her wear it for Halloween too. lol
I love your fabrics! Thanks for running this contest.
Ann
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I was finishing a prototype of a dance bag for a friend’s dance studio. I had brought my Pfaff upstairs because it was too cold in my studio and the husband wasn’t home to light the woodstove!! I set up the card table upstairs in the living room(the card table with one bad leg!Can you see where this is going??) My daughter’s 2 dogs were sound asleep on the couch – then my husband came home. The 2 dogs went flying off the couch to greet him and ran UNDER the card table, which caused the one bad leg to cave in and the Pfaff and everything on the table to fall on the dog. He was not hurt – he never slowed in his race to greet the husband!! The sewing machine and all its contents landed on the floor( I am still finding needles). The card table is now in the trash – the dog and machine are fine and the dance bag is completed and in the mail!! But, I need to get my studio finished, warm, and useable!!!!
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Once I sat down to machine quilt a quilt, started my machine up and thought I heard the doorbell so I stopped and listened. Didn’t hear anything so I went back to sewing. A few seconds later, hear it again so I stopped and listened again. This happened probably 5 or 6 times!! Finally I got up and noticed there were people at the house across the street which is for sale and vacant, ringing the doorbell (which rings our doorbell but in a different tone than our normal ring). I guess they didn’t get the hint that no one was home!
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My story is kind of funny/kind of sad. In college I had my sewing machine out because I had been working on a project. My roomates brother thought it would be funny to “rev” my sewing machine as you would a car with the pedal. Well needless to say after getting it “red-lined” – the next time I sat down to use it, it didn’t work :(
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I was hand sewing – one of my first attempts at embroidery. I’m curled up on the couch, watching tv as I sew, then the doorbell rings. Unfortunately you can see over the tops of our window coverings, so it is impossible to pretend that you are not home in my house. So, I reluctantly get up to answer the door and… that’s when I notice that I have sewn my work onto my trousers.
So I’m poking my head around the door, trying to hide my legs and the attached embroidery hoop from the high school kid that wanted to know if I wanted to help pay for his baseball team to go to Hawaii. I think I’m doing an ok job as the kid doesn’t appear to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. Then my husband arrives home from work, steps around the kid, flings open the door, takes one look at me and exclaims, ‘what on earth is that on your pants???’
Thanks for that, dear.
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My sewing machine is currently set up at my home-office desk. DD is 19months old and currently into mimicking, and it is a regular occurance that as soon as I’m out of my chair, she’s in it trying to make the sewing machine go!
Needless to say I now unplug the power every time I walk away.
Mini-me in the making :-)
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I was making a simple braided rope pull for the dog, joining strands to give greater length, when she decided that it was playtime, right now.
Now she had been a constant in my sewing room since we got her, but this time I guess she was just too excited at the thought of her new toy and decided to help herself.
I’m sewing, piecing the strands for length when my sewing machine starts to move, I look up from my sewing to her latched onto the braid stands and trying to play tug of war with my machine. Needless to say I was less than happy, though I caught her before my machine fell off the table. Thank goodness.
Now, when sewing I have to make sure I know where she is, otherwise she still has a tendency to think of my piecing as new toys for her to chew. You would think the yelling, and banishing from the room would make her think twice, but it appears that she just can’t help herself.
A couple of days ago, I made her another one and this time I got the thing sewed before she saw it. However, she caught me braiding and kept trying to play while I was braiding. It is kind of cute to see, in the way a toddler dancing for that long awaited cookie can be.
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It wasn’t funny at the time, but now I can look back on it and laugh…..
I was free motion quilting away for awhile, ran out of thread in the bobbin, so had to move the piece I was working on….I flipped it aside and there was a really ugly piece of fabric (meant for something else, that would include being covered with chiffon) – fat quarter size quilted totally into the back of the art piece……I just dreaded the thought of unpicking it all, so I hand appliqued the edges under and added my label to the middle of the mess. The people that bought the piece, thought it was FABULOUS how I did the backing!!! LOL
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I was sitting at my machine, getting ready to sew a seam but I was fiddling around a little, getting everything straight. All of a sudden, the machine starts sewing. WTH??? I look down and my toddler is on his hands and knees, pushing on the foot pedal looking up at me semi-angelically. They can be sneaky little buggers when they want to be!
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Hmmm, the funniest (I’m going with irony here) thing to happen to me in my sewing room. That would definitely have to be when I walked in last week to my very first sewing room (we just moved and I now actually have my own room) getting ready to put things in order when I see my husband in there ahead of me. He then announces that I must have “all of this stuff” cleaned up and organized because we were having houseguests. He even wanted to take me to the store so I could get shelving for my stash. I then had to gently explain to him that the whole reason I wanted a dedicated sewing room was so I could shut the door when we have company so no one sees my mess, kinda like what happens with the garage. The look on his face was priceless!
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Great stories! I’m a new reader.
Hmmm….after MANY years sewing,at home and in a costume dept for a large theater company, the funniest thing I can think of is being told by one of the older ladies I sewed with that if I sat on the cement curb, I’d get hemorrhoids! My memory rots. heh
Thank you for your generous give-away! What fun!
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Really, I have nothing as funny to tell. I’m a begginner sewer, just got my first sewing machine couple months ago. Do not have a sewing room for now and I would not say that cleaning the kitchen table, setting-up everything, sew for a bit, put away everything and do it all over again the next day can be call funny. I’m planning on making my first quilt as soon as I’ll have enough fabric to do so ;) and my birthday is March the 13 so I’ll be looking at my emails with hope.
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Weird…I guess you can call it weird…definitely, I call it memorable. Once, the sewing machine needle went through my finger. Ouch! That was painful and something that I will never forget and hopefully never have to experience again!
Great giveaway! Thanks for the opportunity…gorgeous fabrics!
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The only story I can think of is a recent quilt I just finished. It was a blocked quilt and I was greatly satisfied when I finished it! I proudly displayed it to my family only for them to point out that one of by blocks in the center was turned upside-down. Hello my best friend…Mr. Pick!! We all had a good laugh!
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Well I am very protective of my fabric and it takes a lot of self convincing for me to even cut into it. I decided to try out my very first quilt and had my squares all cut and couldn’t figure out why some were missing….I know I am more organzied than that. Maybe I am losing my mind… The inqusition starts…”ok who took my fabric” and so on. They all deny any involvement but the toddler looks sucpicious…she is my number one suspect. Although…..my husband will never pass up any opportunity to mess with my mind…They think I am crazy but I know better. Several days later i decide that I will try to clean some cobwebs behind the couch as I haven’t ventured there in quite some time….what is this???? the vaccum is stuck on something a lot more substantial than a cobweb???? I get a flashlight and see all of this color! After many ill attepts I finally dig out a huge pile of fabric! My squares and some others that believe it or not I didn’t even know were missing. Ok time for some reverse phycology…”just tell me who put this here and I wont be mad I promise!” It’s not working they are all like rocks….ooooh they are good. When I realize that nobody is going to fold I give up….about a week goes by and I think I may be over this…Here comes my little Chihuahua “Peanut” he darts behind the couch and has something in his mouth????
FABRIC
You have got to be kidding me…after some Tough Talk we decide to keep this between us! After all who can blame him for wanting to have his own little stash of beautiful fabric!!
I would love to add your beautiful fabric to my stash!
Brooke
bnbgranger@mwt.net
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Once when I was sewing a project, my two year old boy came up to the workspace and became instantly fascinated in the my colored pins. Slowly they started to disappear throughout the project and I couldn’t figure out where they had gone. As I was nearing the end, I stepped away from my project to check on my little guy. There he was in the middle of the kitchen floor with all the pins lined up in rows, color coordinated, monochromatically! I didn’t know 2 year olds were so meticulous (and sneaky).
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I don’t have a funny story, just my best sewing-related memory… When I was getting married, I tried every way to save money on the wedding expenses. I was even crazy enough to sew my own tablecloths instead of renting them. I got the fabric cheap on eBay, and wrangled one of my friends with a serger to help me do a rolled hem on all of them. It took us FOREVER (maybe two full days of sewing and hemming?), and saved me maybe $300. Penny-wise and pound-foolish!! But they were pretty, and I donated them to the garden (run by a volunteer group) where we were married, so it was all good in the end. :-)
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This is probably more pathetic than funny, but here I go. For my wedding, I sewed intensively. I designed and sewed my wedding dress, and a week before the ceremony, I decided that all 7 of my bridesmaids (2 maids of honor + 4 bridesmaids + 1 junior bridesmaid—yikes!) needed to have wraps and individually designed purses. I managed to finish all of them after midnight the day before our rehearsal.
I was packing everything up when I suddenly realized that I had been so wrapped up in sewing that I had completely forgotten to pull together the music for the wedding entrances and exits! I had to stay up another two hours to finish.
Just goes to show how sewing can take over your brain to the detriment of anything else!
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Hmm. This is tricky. I’m not really thinking of too much that’s funny but I would love to win the fabric, so here goes…
My two-year old daughter steals all of my sewing supplies! (Not the pins or scissors, of course, those are out of reach.) Since most of my sewing happens on the dining room, things like my cutting board or quilters ruler get commandeered.
The 6″x18″ ruler usually gets used as a slide for her cars. She loves her Hot Wheels (goofy kid) and loves to slide them down anything, but my ruler is the BEST thing in the house. So do you think that stays where it’s supposed to? No way! But it’s so cute that how can I say no?
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My cat used to sit on top of my sewing machine when I sewed. I thought nothing of it when he was a small kitten but as he got older, and bigger, his tail would nearly get sewn, and he didn’t fit as well. Once he started to hang over the sides we decided it would be best if he chose a new position but it was fun while it lasted!
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One day as I sat down to sew, I kept breaking my sewing needles, so if breaking 5 sewing needles in a row doesn’t mean ”don’t sew today” I don’t know what it means, To me there are days where you just aren’t meant to sew but to do other things, like take a walk or relax or work on another project. So that’s what I call weird.
lagrande2tall4u@hotmail.com
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I live in a raised ranch, so we exit our home through our garage. my husband leaves the house about 4:00 am. He gets dressed down stairs so not to disturb any of us upstairs. Well my sewing room is down stairs and one morning when I was going out, I noticed a line of thread. My son followed it from my sewing room, through the hallway and out through the garage and halfway down the driveway. My husband had become entangled in it somehow and had not noticed. There was a least 75 feet of thread off the spool! We still laugh about it.
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My weirdest thing was trying to make a pair of pants, and thinking that I’d pretty much conquered them. And then I managed to sew the crotch closed! aaaahhhh!!!! Maybe thats why I now really stick to quilts and home dec items. Big squares and rectangles are hard shapes to mess up!
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I was very new to sewing. I had only owned my machine for a few months. It was on the kitchen table, awaiting for me finish a project. I saw my two young sons huddling around it, but I didn’t know what they were doing. Next time I used the machine it didn’t work well. When I brought it in to be looked at there were 30-40 pins stuck inside the machine. Gotta love little boys….
Betsy
teams_3@yahoo.com
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I think the funniest thing about me and sewing is that I’ve actually learned to do it:)
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Most of my sewing mishaps/funny stories involve my cats – attacking whatever is coming out from under the needle, knocking over my cup of water that I use to fill my iron, finding a spool of thread completely unwound and wrapped around everything in the room… I keep the door shut now!!
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I can’t think of anything funny. Certainly enjoyed reading the other accounts of funny things, but my story is that I first noticed your fabrics when I made my Feedsack Bunnies pattern, first version, and spotted one of your fabrics (from Gipsy Glitter) that would be perfect for one of the four bunny bloomers. I was looking for fabrics that were sort of feedsack, but a more toned down color and that fabric is PERFECT I still adore it and want to use it again. Here’s the photo of it: http://sewprimitive.blogspot.com/2009/01/feedsack-bunnies.html
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Oh what lovely fat quarters they are!
A funny story? Hmmm… How about this:
I had purchased some polyester stuffing for my plushies, and had a little packet of it sitting on the table. I also had a packet of cotton candy floss nearby. As I was about to plop in front of the tv, I grabbed the floss for snack and started munching on the fluff. Only it turned out to be the polyester stuffing! I have no idea how I managed to mistake the white stuffing as the pink candy floss, and did not even notice the difference in texture! Such an embarassing little story!
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I’m a stay at home mom to two boys, who are constantly in my business. My two year old decided that he HAD to be on my lap when I was sewing, so I finally caved and let him up while I finished up a couple more seams on a quilt I was making. When I was nearing the end, I stopped for a second and he immediately started yelling for the machine to GO! I played with him for a while, he would say stop and go, and I would make the machine ‘work’ for him. He thought it was so magical because he didn’t know I was working it with the foot pedal. The next day, we were in Walmart and there was a lady pushing a bakery cart. He started yelling at the top of his lungs for her to stop! I guess he decided that he could magically control anything that moved by staying Stop and Go! Thankfully, I explained it to her and she had a good sense of humor…
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I designed kites and banners as Gentle Winds in Texas in the 70’s. My husband had built me a 1,000 sq ft studio: high ceiling, long cutting tables, lots of windows, no air conditioners! I had two wonderful friends that worked with me. One particuarly hot day we where dripping sweat on our machines and projects. I called a break. Haley disapeared and came back in the studio door hauling a wash tub full of water. She dropped it in the middle of the studio, rolled us over in our sewing chairs and told us to stick our feet in the tub. The three of us sat around in the 100 degree heat laughing and sharing our love of sewing and how lucky we felt to be making money doing something we enjoyed – From then on the Studio became “our real tx sweat shop” Unplanned the next day we each brought in fans – we had to weight our projects down and shout to talk but we kept on sewing… Gentle Winds was always a grand adventure.
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One day as I was looking for something in my studio’s closet I discovered a plastic bag full of fabric that I had never seen before. There was also ribbons and buttons to match. Wow, I thought this was strange, where did it come from? Maybe my husband had bought it? Nah, his surprise gifts tend to be cool technological gadgets. Finally it dawned on me that I had bought this lovely treasure trove TWO years ago! I must have put the bag in the closet and forgotten all about it. Uh, yeah that’s when I realized that it was time to organize my studio. :-)
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My husband and I live fulltime in a travel trailer. I bought a new sewing machine, and promptly packed it away, as we were moving to a new location about 100 miles away. Once we got to the new place, I took the sewing machine out of the box to start a new project. To my dismay, the dang thing would only sew “backwards”!!! Every time I pressed on the foot pedal, the fabric came back towards Me instead of going through the machine. Even when I pushed the “reverse” button.
I was hopping mad because I had to drive 100 miles to exchange the machine. And when I got to the sewing machine shop where I had made my purchase, the owner wouldn’t believe me! He had to take the machine out of the box and try to sew with it. He found out soon enough I knew what I was talking about!
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Whenever I begin quilting I tell myself that I should cut everything first, before I start sewing, because the cutting always ends up being the most dreadful part. Never had I actually done this until the quilt I am working on now. I was extremely proud of myself for finally doing the hard part first and was totally ready to enjoy the fun part. I left the million pieces I had cut on my crafting table and decided to take a break and eat some lunch before I began sewing. When I came back to it, more than half of the pieces were scattered all over the floor, some crumpled, others torn, and a few untouched. My lovely Great Dane had made herself an afternoon play session with my fabric. I was definitely angry at first, but quickly got over that and had to laugh when I discovered most of the pieces were salvageable.
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the stories are so funny…
But I can only tell about my crazy cat… I love to sew, but everytime when I get out of my sewing room my cat jumps on the table and pull off the whole roll of yarn… 5 minutes later the most of the yarn is between the chairs and on the floor and my cat between this and playing.. so what I do when I left the room, I put a bag over my sewing machine, then I have spent so much yarn for my cat and zjaz let my smile often, then the most time I forget it and it is my mistake than….
Greetings from berlin and the fabrics are so wonderful, hope to find one here
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Last winter, we had a contracting crew working on our home office – to get there, they had to go through the dining room – my sewing spot. One day, I had blocks and fabrics laid out to try combinations. Within minutes, the two painters and the plasterer were circled around, offering suggestions and arguing amongst themselves about the best selections. When the crew chief came in to see what the commotion was about, Marlon, Craig and Jose sheepishly went back to work, embarassed that they had been “caught”. For the next few weeks, they would all surreptitiously
check out my progress and offer quiet seggestions. It was an unusual collaboration, but they had some great ideas and it made the disruption and mess more fun.
joann.nordin@isd.net
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This story is kind of embarassing, but, for the sake of fabric… I soldier on.
When I was nine months pregnant, I had major temperature control problems. Just doing the smallest tasks would make me HOT, HOT, HOT. The worst was sewing. No matter how high the air conditioning, sewing and ironing would send me into a boil. One day my husband and my older daughter were out shopping. Figuring I am along, I start sewing . . . and stripping. About an hour in, I am down to a maternity bra/tank and panties. It really was just that hot. Finally comfortable, I start sewing away and get lost in the quilting. About an hour later, I hear the key in the lock. As the door opens, my husband walks in to see me sewing away, nine months pregnant and practically naked! The funniest part about this, is that he wasn’t even fazed… He just walked into the kitchen, set down the groceries, and asked me what I was making. I guess you expect your crazy pregnant wife to do strange things!
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