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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Confessions of a Longarmer.


Yes it's true, I have a confession to make...I had a "OH NO" moment on this quilt and thought I would share.  Now the real problems with "OH NO" moments isn't what you have done...anything can be fixed...it's how you feel when you realize you just did hours worth of work only to discover something went wrong.  It's not a good feeling especial when it happens on a clients quilt.  I pride myself on doing a good job and treating someone elses quilt like it's my own.   So when this happens I am grateful that I have very understanding clients.  The issue with this quilt was a 8inch long, 1/4" deep pleat in the backing and that had never happened before. So guess who will be checking the backing fabric more often??   The fix...I hand stitched the pleat down and  it is hardly noticable on the printed backing fabric.  Happy customer, happy ending.

Since that isn't my worst '"OH NO" moment let me share what happened earlier this year.   I was quilting on a clients quilt when my needle broke right at the eye creating a U shape at the end of the needle.  Even thought it took me only a second to stop the machine the result was a 2" rip the fabric in my clients quilt.  Join me on this emotional rollercoaster....shock, disbelief, then the nausa sets in and you question all the reasons you have a longarm business.  But once I got over that I realized the rip was in a 3" square in the border and I could pick out that square and replace with a new piece of fabric... if my client has more of that fabric.  When I called my clients and she said she had more I could breath again.  Again a happy client and a very happy ending.

Okay, back to this quilt.
This is a new pantograph, it is called Ground Cover and I am very happy with how it stitched out and the even density of the design.  I really suits my clients Northwoods BOM quilt...I wonder how many more of these quilts are still out there just waiting to be finshed?



2 comments:

  1. Oh, oh. Our Kathy is not quite the superhuman quilter we once thought! We love you and your work even more now. Our "disasters" will seem more manageable because if Kathy can "fix" a disaster so can we.
    A

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  2. I thought showing my non-"superhuman quilter" side would be a good thing.
    Did you notice I got rid of my blog counter? I'm bloggin' counter free now, very liberating :)

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