For all you out there having a rough day of sewing...

If you're like me, some days you just can't catch a break in your sewing room.  Something that should only take an hour to do turns into a "staying up past midnight, where has the time gone, dear goodness why can't I just be done with this" ordeal.  So for all of you out there with machines that don't want to cooperate today (because it's never our fault, right??), this one's for you!!

 

My dear friend went into labor a few weeks early, so I was caught without a gift to take to with me to the hospital.  I received word baby Lily had arrived about 6 PM on Saturday night, and we had arranged to go visit them on Sunday after church.  So about 6:15 I sat down and decided what I wanted to make her.  I choose to do a quick and easy (heh, heh) bib and burp cloth set.  I've got an embroidery machine and about 500 applique designs I've hardly touched, so I browsed through my library and found this pretty little frame from Lynnie Pinnie...

... and fell in love like it were the first time I was seeing it all over again.  So I decided to pair it with a pink and white seersucker fabric I had on hand and a pretty floral ribbon I had found at Wal-Mart a while back.  Then I spent the next 45 minutes painstakingly searching through my extensive embroidery thread stash to perfectly match up the thread colors to the flowers in the ribbon, because I'm that OCD. 

 

After all this prep work I've inflicted upon myself, I start stitching the bib.  And it looks A-MAZ-ING!  I keep calling to my husband to come look at it while it's stitching on the machine, and he keeps giving me the sideways glance coupled with an "mmhhhmm" like he could care less.  But I'm just beyond giddy to give my friend this gift the next day, so I let it slide, haha.  Everything is going well, so I decide to go ahead and cut out the fabric for the burp cloth and get started on it.  If I only knew then what I know now....

 

Once the bib was finished stitching, I took it off the machine and admired my work for the next 5 minutes.  At this point, my husband decides to go to bed and asks when I'll be heading that way.  "Oh, soon!" I tell him.  "Just need to stitch the design on the burp cloth."  I've already done the hard part of picking the design, thread, fabric, etc.  So then I go to take the bib off the frame so I can now stitch the burp cloth.  But what do I find?!  Since I wasn't paying attention to the bib anymore, part of the neck piece somehow got tucked up under the hoop and was being stitched to the back of the bib.  I can't even get the bib off the hoop because of the way it was stitched on.  Holy moly you've got to be kidding me!! 

 

At this point it is 11 PM.  I think to myself, it's ok, I'll just take out those stitches that are connecting the two pieces together, and then I'll just re-stitch that section.  So I get my trusty seam-ripper, and get to work.  After 45 minutes of this (bibs are hard to take stitches out of since there is a looped pile), I realize that somehow there are stitches under the neck piece, too.  I don't even know how to describe it, but there were tons that needed to be taken out.  I may have shed a tear or two.  After another 20 minutes of picking stitches, I realized I was making a big hole.  There was no saving it now.  So basically, the last 5 hours of my life had been in vain.  I had to cut the dang thing off the frame. 

 

 

 

Now at this point, I'm really tired.  Absolutely have to go to bed.  Have no gift to take to my friend.  Am started to freak out because I don't even have another white bib to use (thankfully I did find one the next day).  Am furious that I spent so much time on something that is going in the trash.  And feel defeated.  Did I really just waste that much time on something whose sole purpose is to clean spit-up, just to throw it away?!?  Time for bed. 

 

But, the bright side to this tale of woe is that on Monday I was able to finish up this pretty little set, and I am in love with it!  Haven't been able to see my friend again yet (trying to give her some space that I always appreciated/needed after bringing a baby home), but I think she's going to love it, too! 

 

  

So moral of the story is that if you know your embroidery machine is out to get you the first second you take your eyes off of it, then don't take your eyes off of it.  Other take-home points are that everyone has bad sewing days, so don't feel like the lone ranger, and it's really just best to sew during the day when you aren't tired and prone to making mistakes.  Hope my story helps someone having a bad sewing-day feel a little better.  And remember, a bad day sewing is better than a good day not sewing!

 

So go sew something magical!

Take a look at where we link up our blog posts!