Wednesday 26 March 2014

Sew Kitchsy - paper pieced bowl

As I mentioned back in January Kristy at Quiet Play is running another one of her fabulous paper piecing BOMs. The theme is Sew Kitschy and it is retro kitchen items.  I don't have space for a wall hanging in my little kitchen, so I'm making the blocks and turning them into practical items. What we needed most were trivets for putting hot dishes down on.



I made a bad choice for the stripes on the bowl, they're not obvious enough.  Speaking of which, I tend to point out mistakes I've made and things I could have done better in my posts.  There are a few reasons for this and I've been pulled up about it so many times in the comments recently that I thought I'd say something here.



I am not showing you the mistakes so you can say "don't be daft, it's brilliant".  This is a log of the things I've made, warts and all.  Don't you get bored reading blog post after blog post saying "ta-dah!  Look what I've made, it's perfect!".  OK, that's how other bloggers want to write, but I'm not playing.  The stuff I make has faults. Sometimes it's just stupidity on my part, other times I can learn from it.  Why not share?  I'm sorry that it bothers some of you, but I'm really not being down on myself.  Yes, I cocked up.  So what?  I don't care so you shouldn't either.



As you can see, most of the fabrics are Flea Market Fancy.  I'd cracked them out for the appliqued cushion and so thought I might as well use them.  Our kitchen has white units with black tops, and the tiles are multi-coloured, all colours except pink and purple, so anything goes.  I used Sketch for the spoon, it was the perfect choice.  So, I basted this bad boy up- I put on borders after making the block, I've just realised I was waffling about be being crap publicly and forgot to talk about what I made! - I started FMQing and...



What the??  How flimsy must that bit of metal have been?  I thought I'd broken the needle the sound it made, then I saw the needle and was a bit confused until I found this in my lap.  Well, no more FMQing for me... Jacob's quilt definitely won't be done this month now!


Scrappy binding and it was done.  I wanted a go at echo quilting, it's something I've never tried.  Yep, should have done that with a walking foot, not a darning foot!


It's OK though for something that lives on a kitchen counter and gets chucked in the wash with dirty socks every week!


The bar thing broke when I was doing the curlies in the spoon, I just kind of carried on, I was so near the end.


I have completely ran out of things to say about this trivet...  Oh, I don't much like the way I did the borders.  I didn't have enough of one print to do them all, so I should have mitred them.


It's bloody huge.  The bowl section is 10", I added far too much of a border and it's loads bigger than the other one.  I think that's an old pillow case on the back.  I'm not wasting expensive designer fabric on the back of a trivet.


The binding went OK.  I did it by machine as I really couldn't be arsed hand binding it.  It's not perfect, but it does the job and doesn't look as bad as it sometimes does!


Is this post over yet?  I'm boring myself...


Related posts

January - oven gloves

14 comments:

Rachel said...

As you say, plenty good enough for the purpose - quite charming in fact - and if you have learnt from what you don't like, and know what to do differently, another time then it's all good. The anxious ones might be reassured if you were to mention more of the things you are happy with as well!

Sarah in Stitches said...

It looks great! I know absolutely nothing about quilting, so if you hadn't pointed out the mistakes I wouldn't have known better. I've done posts about my mistakes too, especially the first couple of biscornus I made, which were disasters. Just keep doing your own things! :D

JoJo said...

Making that into a hot pad was a great idea. And I point out my mistakes too. But I think it's good to do that because you don't know if some anonymous crafter has read about a project on your blog. That way you can point out what went wrong along the way and then that makes it easier for the next person not to make the same mistakes.

Sandra :) said...

I love the echo quilting on your trivet! Can you return the darning foot and get a new one? I would have been some ticked about that - it's a good thing it didn't poke you in the eye!

Mary Ann Tate said...

I totally agree with what you said.I always point out stuff I do wrong so my readers won't do the same stupid things too. I'm not looking for compliments. I'm being honest...I screwed it up folks. Also I look at my blog as sort of a diary. I go back and look sometimes at what I did on some project just as a reminder.

I'm not a quilter so to me your trivet is fabulous warts and all. To be honest I'm not sure I'd notice any mistakes but if you point them out then that's good information for me to know. I think I need a trivet something like that for my counter but not as complicated design wise.

Celtic Thistle said...

What on earth did you do to that machine foot? I had to use brute force to turn the pin back when I was modifying it a la Leah Day!

Keep up with the warts and all approach, so much better than here's another perfect example of my wonderful sewing!

Think you have made a great trivet even with all the problems you have pointed out :)

CeLynn said...

Oh dear,that doesn't look good! Loving the Flea Market Fancy trivet.

Jo Ferguson said...

When I get hung up on a mistake I just remind myself that my dog's butt, will be sitting on it. Then I'm fine. I also point out my mistakes. I also get heat for it. I'm learning and my mistakes are helping me become a better quilter so I think we should celebrate our mistakes and our triumphs.

Jane said...

My foot has broken too, I haven't done FMQ for ages as I haven't got around to replacing it. It seemed to snap quite easily too

margaret said...

there is nothing wrong in pointing out errors, I just think that you have personalised the item, this latest one looks fine to me. When I was doing my C & G embroidery we were not allowed to undo errors but were told to make a feature of them, I have plenty of practise at that!

Renee said...

I had to laugh reading your post. My hubby wants to know why people that comment on my blog do not tell me where they think I could improve, and doesn't it get boring just hearing the positive remarks. I told him the errors are all glaringly obvious to me as it is - lol! I completely understand pointing them out.

Love your trivet. I have been itching to make a set of place mats and matching napkins... but it sounds like so much work. (Says the person that would happily spend 40 hours hand stitching one 6-inch block. I never claimed I was rational!) Seeing your work here was almost enough to send me to the sewing room.

Karen Ackva said...

Thanks for the hilarious read! More people should be ever more candid and honest. I do appreciate tips and learning from my own mistakes. I try not to scrappy binding anymore. The mitering ususally ends up in the corners and causes problems. There, you did a fantastic job not to make that mistake! ;-)

Anonymous said...

I think pointing out the mistakes helps me figure out what to do better next time... always helpful for me, and hopefully for others. Sorry about your busted foot :-( Hope it's easily replaced!

Marci Girl said...

Well I think it turned out great! When you go to replace your FMQing foot, see if you can find an all metal one, and you won't have to worry about that crap plastic anymore. My plastic one did something very similar right in the middle of a project, so annoying. Researched a bit, found a metal one for the same price!