ffq-lar Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 We haven't done this for a while and we have lots of new quilters who may need a boost. Please share your most memorable goof-up, so they'll know we've all been there and done that--and may have the scars to prove it! One of mine--loaded the backer wrong-side down and didn't realize until the dreaded seam came into view. Solution? It was my sister's quilt, luckily, and also luckily, the backer was batik. So I frogged to the seam, unloaded, unsewed the seam and re-stitched it so the seam allowances were inside instead of outside, re-loaded (my first time re-loading a quilt and I decided I never wanted to do that again) and continued. Luckily it was an overall design. When I gave it back she said it wouldn't have mattered--she would have appliqued a strip across the mistake to hide it. Now she tells me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meg Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 I've goofed so many different ways, it's hard to pick just one. I guess if I had to pick just one, it would be not too long ago, I somehow turned my flimsie 1/4 turn before I put it on top of the batting. While quilting along, almost done, I heard a funny popping noise. I'd run out of backing and I was stitching the flimsie to the leader! Luckily, I heard it right away and stopped. I removed it from the leaders, cut off and pieced the sides to fill in at the bottom. It was a wide back. I had JUST ENOUGH. I reloaded it and finished. I've tripled checked loading ever since that happened. What a PITA! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickenscratch Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 started the machine without the bobbin in place. what a mess of snarled thread that was Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmwest Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 Today, had my "first" quilt on my new Millie and did first row. Did 2nd row and realized I had not tightened my laser light. Won't make that mistake again. Just think, if I learn something with every quilt that I do not want to do again, maybe I will get good at this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heritage Keepsakes Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 Yeh, we'll this one is fresh for me. Only just repaired the quilt yesterday!! I had just finished sewing the binding on by machine, ready for the last step of hand finishing. When I folded the quilt I felt an OUCH!, and thought, 'I shouldn't be feeling ouch at this stage of construction.' Yep, I'd quilted one of my big stabilising pins into the quilt!! Still not sure how it managed to get in between the layers. Only way to get that pin out was to put a small cut in the back of the quilt and open it up to get at it. (Thankfully this is not a customer quilt, but a gift) With pin extracted, a repair was needed to patch the hole. I couldn't even disguise it by placing a makers label on it, as it's not in an inconspicuous place like a corner. I'm hoping this is the one and only time in my quilting life this happens! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oma Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 It wasn't longarming...it was cutting. I was waiting for my friend to pick me up to go to a quilt class last Saturday and I didn't cut all my fabric before hand. I decided to let the instructor tell us how to do it. Then at the last minute I decided that I could cut out the 4½" squares on my Studio cutter and save a lot of time since there were 72 of them. Then I decided to cut a bunch of 4½" squares because it called for other 4½" pieces and I could just cut the squares instead of messing with the yardage. I had a whole (like at least 150 or more) stack of 4½" squares. I was so proud of myself. Then at class while actually reading the pattern I find that the "other pieces" were 4½" x 2½". Yup...that means I waste 2" off every piece or I save those squares for another project and cut my pieces out of my yardage. Well...duh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barbm Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 I can beat ALL of you! But don't tell APQS.....this wouldn't look good coming from a Rep!! I think it was two years ago when this happened. I had gotten into the bad habit (bad, BAD habit!!! don't do this!!!) of running my needle through my cleaning cloth in order to wipe off WD40 and oil after cleaning - saves having to find a mini-quilt sandwich to do it on. Well, just before putting a customer quilt on, I was doing a thorough clean, with the needle plate off.... Can you see where this is going? It wasn't pretty...... All it took was a single "needle down" to suck that rag through the top hole (you know, that big round hole that is normally covered by the needle plate - and for good reason) and wrap it right around the hook assembly. It took me the better part of an hour with tiny little scissors, an Xacto knife and long-tip tweezers to remove all the pieces of that ?@$()&%$$@!@!!?> rag. But it gets even better: after I'd cleared the rag, my baby still made a "click, click, click" sound as I cycled the needle. Well, okay, take out that needle. No change.... Okaaaay, I know how to do this, so I took off the hook assembly itself. STILL didn't make any change in the noise! Called Amy and groveled - she said it sounded like I had chipped a tooth on one of the gears - yikes!!!! Well, guess it's time for a "spa treatment," right? With Amy's grudging permission, I finished that customer quilt, ever so slowly and carefully, hoping that the gears continued to mesh as they should. All done with the quilt, decided to check that sound before I packed my baby for her trip - and THERE'S NO CLICKING SOUND! After removing ALL the grease in the gear box and examining the gears, our best guess is that the rag-sucking caused a small air pocket in the grease, causing that "popping/clicking" sound from the gear box. Refilled with new grease and haven't had any more problems.... So now you know that even us APQS Reps do some dumb things sometime!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jclark Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 I was in a hurry to get a quilt made for the bed in our motorhome as we were heading south for the winter. I cut some of the fabrics into strips and then thought, "dang it, I should have washed this fabric first as this quilt will get a lot of use and need to be laundered often." So, I dumped the all ready cut strips into the washer and dryer. OMG--they shrank probably 2 inches in width!!! The fabric was batik--so off to the quilt shop I went to find some more fabric!! That one cost me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little House Creations Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 This may top Barb's story - maybe . . . I always put a scrap of batting or fabric under the bobbin area when I'm cleaning or oiling the bobbin area so nothing drips onto the carriage. Usually, I run the machine with no bobbin or thread for a bit, turn the machine off, and then wipe up any excess. Well, for some reason, I was in a hurry or just having one of those "moments" and I started cleaning the bobbin area while the machine was running - the hook assembly grabbed the piece of fabric (probably 3" x 3) and wrapped it all around the hook assembly . . . like Barb, it took me ages to clear it all. Now for the REALLY embarrassing part - I've done this twice!!! It will NEVER happen again....ever! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barbm Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 Yup, twice beats me, Bev! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darlene Epp Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 I've done all of the above, except for the rag in the hook. But my most embarrassing moment came when 2 customers (friends) arrived to pick up their finished quilts. One had brought batting and one hadn't. The "moment" came when they both looked at their bills and realized I'd put the one customer's batting in the other customer's quilt! One of them got free batting! I wish I could say this happened when i was a newbie 16 years ago, but it was just last year! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primitive1 Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 My most embarrasing moment came about 10 years ago when I was learning to appliqué, I used freezer paper on the back sides of all of the pieces for a miniature dresden quilt. It came out really cute but when I brought it to show and tell at my guild meeting, someone asked why it made a crinkling sound and then asked if I forgot to remove the freezer paper...my comment was, "I was supposed to remove the paper?" I remember hearing alot of laughing and decided that I wasn't going to take this whole quilt apart again so I washed it a bunch of times until it softened up... now I put the freezer paper on top and remove it as I applique.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K. Szymaszek Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 This happened most recently. I was very happy to have a quilt that needed a panto, easy peasy. I did a couple of rows and upon rolling, I noticed the bobbin thread broke. I put a pin to mark and kept going. It happened again, marked with a pin. Did half of this large quilt and had to frog an area. As I started to pull thread out it seemed like there was more thread than there should be. I decided to take it all out and start over. That quilt took me forever as there were days I just couldn't face it. Now I can't seem to get rid of it. Customer and I just can't connect. She is really bad at returning calls. I'm ready to put in a bin and forget about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 I have two memorable moments that come to mind: First I walked away from my machine with the needle down, only to stumble on my return, falling against the machine causing the needle to tear the quilt top and backing. Second I turned the machine on to warm up, cranked up the speed, forgetting to remove the thread from the take up lever. What a mess!!! The tread seized up the flywheel and I spend hours cutting and picking thread. Two valuable lessons learned!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RitaR Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 Himself learned real fast to not have a rag around the race, hook assembly while running it to get any extra wd40 out of the machine and then the oil. It was the oil part that caught his Tshirt piece. My worst was quilting when I was so sick.. I really messed up a pretty Grandmothers Fan quilt. Himself has my permission to gently remove me from the sewing room when I'm in that state again. I'm frogging for a while, and take a break then frog for 2-3 days then take a break. I'd put a special design in each petal of the fan. Grrrrrrrrrrr. I Am Determined to Finish that frogging and restitch the quilt into a pretty quilt. My most recent is the Carpenter's Star I'm making. Didn't realize the needle breaking had shredded one fabric at a 4 way intersection. I have to frog that portion of the quilt.. all simple sid or Line dancing.. so not to bad. Another job of frogging, not so extensive so I don't mind frogging. Rita Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
o2b Quilting Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 A couple of years ago I was teaching a renter's class. I demonstrated how to pin a backing on...only to realize I had the backing fabric over the top of the leveler bar That is the only time I have ever made that mistake...likely because I was so embarassed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisquilter Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 Well.... Early on in my career, I had two quilts from the same customer to do. I thought the backing did not quite go with the quilt, but who am I to second guess the customers's choice. I quilted it and happily returned it to the customer. She Gasped! Wrong back, and she could not live with it! It was a two color quilt with small snowball blocks. I had meandered (very small meander) everywhere on the quilt and did a fancy thingy in the snowball block. With her permission I frogged all the snowball blocks, loaded it back on the machine ( with the correct back for sure) and quilted only the snowball blocks. For years after she would show that quilt asking how they thought the quilter had quilted the quilt without the meandering showing up on the back! Oh man, sure did not make any money on that quilt! I'm still great friends with this customer and we still laugh over the "magical quilt". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anniemueller Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 Early on I stitched into a leader. Not smart. Last year, after I got the IQ I walked a few steps away while the machine was quilting something for a friend. I'd allowed the IQ to make jump stitches on a block, some of which were 4" to 6" long. Yep, the machine got stuck in the bobbin side of the jump stitches, and kept stitching in place. It ripped a couple of sizeable holes before I realized what was happening. Then I was too upset to remember how to turn it off on the IQ tablet, I tried to turn it off with Millie's blue button. That just made it stitch faster and rip harder. Ouch. I did my best to darn the holes. It's not pretty by any means, but it was a very busy quilt anyway, so it wasn't totally obnoxious, when viewed 6 feet away from atop a galloping horse. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LFQuilts Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 This is not my worst mess up - but it is memorable because it happened last night. I'm working on a baby quilt. Very full borders and other issues - relatively new quilter. However, she is a new customer and I want to do some nice quilting. I get out my quiltazoid (which I don't use often enough) and I'm working with one of the pattern boards (#3). I'm zipping along, half-way through a design and all of a sudden a traceback is wrong, very wrong. I had used the wrong screws to put the pattern board on the base; the short screws backed out and the board slipped. Should be a simple matter of frogging one small part of the design and restarting. Well, for the life of me, I could not get the board back in EXACTLY the same spot. I spent hours, thankfully not stitching, trying to realign everything. I should have just frogged the whole design to begin with and restarted - which of course is what I did late last night. All of this for a $50 quilting job . . . Silly me; I'm off to restart this project in a few minutes. We all make mistakes. We all learn from them. Sometimes, alas, we need to learn a lesson a couple of times. L Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darlene Epp Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 Something I WISH I had done as a newbie! KEEP a JOURNAL of all your mistakes and what you LEARNED from them. Maybe I'll start one today since it seems I'm still not done learning! LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie H Posted July 30, 2013 Report Share Posted July 30, 2013 Oh this is a good (awful!!! LOL) thread. I'm loving all the stories. One of my customers brought me two of the same raw edge applique quilts. She chose two pantos, both with the word DAISY in them. I saw my writing "DAISY" and didn't read the rest of the words there. Of course, I have two (maybe three?) different "daisy" pantos and didn't realize it until I went to print out her invoice. The quilt was too dense for me to even think about unstitching and redoing so I offered one to her free, which she was perfectly happy about (one was a gift anyway). I felt just awful. Her dad had just passed away and I'm sure my mistake was the furthest thing from her mind. Both quilts looked great with the panto and she sent me such a sweet card later to let me know she loved them and not to worry. Another customer's quilt, I was quilting away, doing a panto when my machine got stuck (a DUH moment!). When I tried to figure out what it was stuck on, I accidentally knocked the laser AND pulled my panto paper. I didn't realize it until I finished quilting most of the quilt and had to unstitch one whole row and fudge the panto to fit and look normal. I was able to make it look like it should as it wasn't too far off, maybe a half an inch to an inch, thankfully, but it was a lot of work! I think we all at some time or another, if we haven't already, will load a backing wrong. I loaded a backing wrong on my own quilt and only had 3/8 of an inch to fit that quilt on! I have angels that watch out for me, I think. Like Forrest Gump says, "Stupid is as stupid does." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustSewSimple Posted July 31, 2013 Report Share Posted July 31, 2013 Darlene, that journal idea is a keeper! 1.Several years ago I popped in the bobbin and took off stitching. I heard a LOUD thud across the room and realized the bobbin case had flung itself across the room and hit the far wall. I could have killed somebody walking by!!!! 2. Back about that same time I was quilting using a panto and it was looking just so wonderful....I was finished and admiring my work when I noticed one row of panto only went 1/2 across - the rest of that row was unfinished! Now how in the world? Well, I was lucky enough to place the panto back in the same place and finish it - whew! I can be just so lame sometimes (most times!) I guess that is what makes life interesting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandalei Posted July 31, 2013 Report Share Posted July 31, 2013 Thank you, all, for sharing. That quilt I posted about that made me want to go in the corner and hide? I had forgotten to attach the side clamps for a row, and it threw everything off and made the top completely out of square for the rest of the quilting. Frogged, requilted, perfectly square again. Lesson learned! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darlene Epp Posted July 31, 2013 Report Share Posted July 31, 2013 I think I'll make a "Things I've Learned from the Mistakes I've Made" journal a part of every new machine owner's "Welcome" package! Now why didn't I think of that a LONG time ago instead of just yesterday?! I'm a slow learner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enchanted Quilting Posted July 31, 2013 Report Share Posted July 31, 2013 A mistake I make (and sometimes still do) is after filling a bobbin with the cone, I don't put the cone back on the machine...run out of top thread immediately. Not a deal breaker...I usually use it as a sign to take a quick walk break! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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