Testing, testing . . .

So, I was trying to make this lovely, cool little mini-quilt for my second month in the mini-quilt swap over at Flikr. My swap partner is from B.C., and the theme for the month was triangles, so I decided to try doing a wonky triangle. After a test run of the triangle, I made another, fantastic triangle in some of my favorite dots that I had been saving for something wonderful. Then I decided it was a little a-frame cabin and I made this cute little scene, all in triangles, to go around it. As I mentioned last week, in my rant, I went out and got some fusible web to stick it all down.

Well, either the ladies were right that I am stupid and incompetent, or they sold me old fusible, or my new iron is too hot, becuase it didn't work. I ended up with applique pieces (including my awesome triangle) that had fusible web on one side, and would not stick to my background.

This is the point where the situation gets truly Jillish. . . . So do I decide to change my idea? Or ask someone who might know what to do what to do? No. I decide to bravely plow on. I button-hole stitch around the applique pieces, sandwich the baby up and start quilting. I had decided that this would be a perfect project to try using thick embroidery floss on, since I want to do that on my play mat that I will make sometime before the boys are in highschool. So I started to quilt it . . . and the edges of the applique start to fray, and pull away from the background. So I undo half the quilting, re-zig-zag the offending side of the triangle, and do some looser, further apart quilting. Again, another section starts pulling away. And as I go, each piece I try to quilt starts fraying and coming off the background fabric.


So I stop, and post it on Flikr, and get some suggestions. But unsure of which one to try, I decide to try . . . all of them. First, I try appliquilting around one triangle on my machine. It looks kind of stupid, but the thing is stuck on there. But when I try to do that on my big, wonky triangle, my machine rebells and starts skipping stitches again. I change the needle. The new needle won't stay threaded. So in a panic (I have another 15 days to complete this thing, but for some reason I decided I had to so it right that moment) . . .I decide to hand quilt a second triangle to see if that will work. It doesn't really. I'm not happy with it. So I take a section of the big triangle and try some hand sewn blanket stitch on it. Didn't like the look of that . . .


So now I have three different, weird bits of stitching all over my quilt. None of which are working for me or doing the quilt any favors. So I decide to just cut the quilt apart. I saved the tree, which I really think is cute, and which isn't fraying yet, for some future adventure. And this is what I have left:


I can't decide wether to just bind it and send it off to my swap partner (it is 8 inches) or make another, square quilt with some sort of triangular piecing that I know something about. Ug. Why don't I ever just stop and think?