MURPHY S QUILTING LAWS. When you go to the quilt store for the quarter of a yard that you need, there is none left.

Transcription

1 MURPHY S QUILTING LAWS When you go to the quilt store for the quarter of a yard that you need, there is none left. When you need 12" and you have the perfect fabric in your stash, you will only have 10". Just as soon as you get in a good sewing rhythm, the dog MUST go outside RIGHT NOW You need to "unsew" a crooked seam and there is no seam ripper in sight. You've been chain sewing forever and you notice that the bottom pieces are wrong side up. You ve been chain sewing forever and you notice that your bobbin ran out about 7,354 pieces ago. You have pinned and pinned to match seams, sewn 2 looooong rows together, removed the pins as you sewed, only to find when you get to the end, your bobbin ran out of thread way back at the start. If it can go together backwards, it will. After unsewing the backwards pieces, you will find a new an unique way to sew them together wrong. Thread always runs out (or breaks) at the most inopportune time. If you put off cleaning your machine for "one more seam", it will chew up your bobbin thread and spit it out, half-way through that seam. You have just appliqued the perfect leaf----and added a third layer your skirt!!!! When you need an additional half-yard of fabric to finish your quilt, the store has a different dye lot and it's noticeably different. If you cut one block wrong, you will not have any more of the fabric and you won't have big enough scraps to re-cut! If the quilt is mostly black, the white cat will find it irresistable! Whatever tool you need will hide from you. Even if you just used it. Having spent ages drawing several intricate shapes for your appliqué masterpiece, you iron them on to the right side of the fabric. Page 1 of 5

2 You've got 3 inches of a quilt to do to be done and you run out of thread. Completely. No matter how many places you have for cats and dogs to lay, they will always choose your current project as their new favorite spot. You finally have a "free day" to quilt and some one else has other plans for you. You always run out of whatever you run out of after your local retail source has closed for the day! You cut º diamonds, then turn the page of the pattern and discover they had to be 45º. Your perfect machine will decide to misbehave only when you have a deadline. You need a yellow thread that will be the only one missing in your collection of 743 threads. When there is nothing left to do except enjoy sewing, there will be a power outage. If you go to buy only a half- yard to finish a project, everything will be on sale and you'll end up with 5 new yards that do not go with anything in your stash. You remove something from the machine that needs some hand work, walk down the hall, through the dining room and kitchen and realize when you sit down in the family room that you forgot to clip the bobbin thread. This is the one time when your bobbin did not run out. You have a temporary design wall up and your pattern all laid out nicely... and your furbaby runs past, taking the wall with it. You insist that the sewing order of the rows be a certain way and you make sure to line up the rows in order, and somewhere the rows will get out of order and you will not notice it until you are done. Absolutely. Completely. Done. As you're handing a quilted gift to someone, you notice a huge, glaring mistake right in the middle of it that you didn't even see until that very instant. You're in a hurry to finish a gift, go to clip a spare thread and cut a hole in the quilt top. You ve completed the piecing, cross-hatch hand quilting and binding of a large wedding gift quilt with a white-on-white for a wedding that afternoon and notice that you ve sewn one of the long borders wrong-side-up. And it really, really shows. The seam that you need to take out is the one with the tightest stitching. When you try to do just "one more" late at night, it's guaranteed to need ripping! Page 2 of 5

3 The tool or pattern or fabric or whatever that you couldn't find turns up as soon as you buy a new one. You are hanging that beautiful blue and yellow wallhanging in your daughter's room and all of a sudden you see that one small half-square triangle is rotated 1/4 turn from where it should be. You scream and then swear that you will never tell a soul since it's not that noticeable. Then your daughter comes in the next morning and says "Mom, I couldn't sleep last night and I was counting the squares in that wallhanging, and did you know that one of the triangles is going the wrong way?" You re going great guns on the project and the cat is sleeping peacefully under the sewing table. When you stop sewing to reposition the quilt, he rolls over onto the foot pedal and the machine starts sewing on its own again. The one time you don't account for shrinkage, you have to go out buy more fabric because it shrunk too much and you're a few pieces too short. When you are finishing one last thing for the quilt show (or for immediate mailing), every trifling thing goes wrong. Scraps breed, but never include the one little bit you need for an applique or foundation piecing project. When you finally use up that ugly fabric that has been taking up space for years, you find that it would have been perfect for a gift to make for a very good friend. After sewing row upon row together you take a look and find in the middle of them all you have one turned the wrong way!! That piece you saved for the perfect binding for your king size quilt show entry? It s 15 short. Which you discover after having sewn all but 2 feet of it onto the quilt and realize at the same time that you decided on a whim to add an extra 2 outer border at the last minute. And quilt show entries are due no later than 10AM tomorrow. The automatic iron switched off 10 minutes ago. You get the bobbin filled with thread only to drop it the cat finds it and the chase is on. All over the house. Ever try to rewind bobbin after cat has had fun? You realize the seam you just ripped is right next to the one you actually needed to rip. When you take your sewing machine with you for vacation, the bobbins are left at home (except the one in the machine) and the nearest place to get them is 50 miles away. You have tons of fabric in your stash but never the color you need make the border or binding. Page 3 of 5

4 No matter how many duplicates you have of rippers, small rulers, thimbles, awls, pins, etc. you can never find one when you need it no matter how hard you look. When you don't need them, you can lay your hands on six of any one. You spend a year on your appliqué masterpiece and people say how much they love the back. You ve finished free-motion quilting your quilt top, and find that a corner of the backing somehow got folded back onto the quilt which you have free-motion quilted over for miles. You take your machine to a workshop, lay out your precut fabric pieces, bobbins, marker, snips, cutting mat, rotary cutter, pin cushion and thread all out on the table, sit down to begin sewing and find you have left the foot control and power cord at home. You finally decide to buy that expensive quilting book, and after bringing it home, discover you already know everything in the book and then find a perfect copy of it the next day for $2 at the used book sale. When you finally get in the mood to attack that UFO and it's nowhere to be found. You have the perfect quilt pattern in your mind while trying to sleep at night and can't wait for morning to come so you can draw the pattern out. However, morning comes and goes and you can't remember any one of those pieces. You put your your quilt show entry in the washing machine to wet it for blocking it, and find when you pull it out that the washing machine is full of dirt, car oil and rusty water you didn't know was there from your houseguest s laundry. If you go to the store for just one thing, they'll be out of it, and come home with at least $20 worth of fabric you don't have any need for at all but just couldn't leave without. The tension of your machine is messed up and you move to the backup machine only to find its tension is even worse. After patiently cutting blocks with 4 layers of different fabrics you find that you have one piece folded in half so the pieces are too small and, of course, that is the only fabric you don't have any more of. It is 11PM an you are ready to quilt your white quilt and you realize you have every other thread in the rainbow (including shades of gray and tan) but no white. The only seam ripper you can find when you need to rip some real tight stitches is the one with the broken tip. The only pin on the sewing room floor is the one that your spouse finds with their foot. Page 4 of 5

5 You are working under the CFL lights and pull colors to match your focus fabric. You finish the quilt, and take it into a room with natural light and discover that the color in the focus fabric is not medium orange but medium pink. You get ready to go downstairs to quilt when your husband asks for help for a minute -- however it takes him an hour to get things ready for you to help him. You have a 60% off coupon for a single cut of fabric, only to have all the fabric you have to have for a project this weekend is already be on sale for 30% off so you can't use the coupon. You rip out a mistake to discover later it was not a mistake in the first place. You get all the blocks sewn into rows and the rows sewn together, head to the ironing board for a final press and discover an entire row of blocks left on the ironing board. You put a new needle in, the phone rings, you answer it and have a lovely conversation with your niece. You return to the machine, lower the presser foot, and chain sew 15 sets of 4 1/2" squares. You pull the chain of squares back to cut apart and realize you never re-threaded the needle. And, the 1/4" seam was perfect. If you have a piece of fabric 10" wide and need five 2" wide strips, you will cut one of those strips 2 1/2" wide and be short 1 strip. The cat will choose to nap only on the quilt you made for your sister with allergies. As you put the final stitch in the binding of her Barbie quilt, you hear your granddaughter say "Barbie is for babies. I want a Harry Potter quilt. You will break your last sewing needle at midnight the night before your quilt is to be turned in for the guild quilt show. You shop several stores for desperately needed fabric to a complete a quilt show entry and cannot remember where you bought it. You re standing close to your very first quilt show entry during the exhibit to see what people will say when they look at it. The first person to view your quilt points out an error to her small group of friends and she s right about the error. Page 5 of 5