"Let's Talk" Tuesday...

There used to be a column in a magazine I read once upon a time (cannot remember!) entitled "Was My Face Red", it ran short stories submitted by readers of their most embarrassing moments, today's topic is just that.

What is your most embarrassing quilting story? Does it still turn your face red to remember?

I have two stories, both make me laugh now, thinking back; but they were extremely embarrassing at the time. I was teaching a basic quilt making class at our local technical college, approximately a thirty minute drive from our home. I arrived at the school and opened the trunk of the car to get out my teaching bag when I realized that I had left it, back at the house, on the floor of the garage! I had placed it there when I removed the folding chairs from the trunk to make room, and never picked it back up. I could do little else, at that time, but go inside and unlock the classroom, take the roll and leave my students for an hour (of a three hour class) while I returned back home to retrieve the lesson plan, hand-outs, and my teaching aids. That was seventeen years ago, if my memory serves me correctly, I believe I gave them a project to work on while I was gone. I hope so. The second embarrassing situation happened to me only three years ago. I had agreed to donate a quilt to our church's silent auction to benefit charity. I had completed the top and already submitted the dimensions, description of the quilt and a photograph for a brochure. I was up against a deadline (that's always the case!) and still needed to quilt it but I felt confident that I could do it in time, even if it came right down to the wire. Then, I had a last minute, brilliant(!), thought; to add a narrow inner border for an additional pop of color! I had just read an article about piecing in narrow borders using a larger seam allowance and trimming it out afterward; without a second thought I did it, trimmed it back, flipped it over to admire it, and was shocked to discover that I had chopped off every single star point on the outside edges! I had destroyed it, and there was no time (or any more of the same fabric) to create another. I went ahead and quilted it. I decided to machine quilt 1/4" inside each and every point and I made those quilting lines perfect, I pivoted right before where the star point should have been and created sharp angles with contrasting thread. It was all that I could do. I don't think anyone at the auction noticed, but to me there could just as easily have been neon lights above each chopped point bringing attention to them, it was that glaring! Amazingly, that same quilt garnered a second place ribbon at North Carolina Quilt Symposium the following year, apparently my quilting remedy went a long way to healing those amputated points; go figure.

...and "sew", let's talk...
What's your most embarrassing quilting story?

Life is Good!