Detail from "Rain Dance," an original quilt by Sherrie Spangler

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The case of the fused safety pin



Getting back to my quilt -- I already had pin-basted it for quilting when I decided today to add a circle on one of the blocks so that I could quilt outward from it in a spiral. So I dove into my many stashes of leftover tidbits and found this circle that I stamped years ago.




The color worked, so I fused it down ... I fused it down good. Then I satin-stitched the edge to make sure it wouldn't go anywhere. I got ready to quilt, starting on the stamped spiral, and I felt something funny.

I had fused a safety pin between the quilt and the circle!

You can see its faint outline in the picture if you look just to the right of the spiral.


After considering my options, I decided the only thing to do was go in for surgery, cutting carefully through the top. I removed the pin, sealed the slit with fusible, then topped it with some scraps of sheer yellow and hoped it would all look like I planned it.


To get started on the spiral, I drew a guideline on a scrap of paper and stitched over the drawing. After that I just used the edge of the foot as a guide. I'm not done yet.


I like the back of the pieced top almost better than the front.



 Have a colorful day




4 comments:

Judy Sall Fiber Art said...

OMG! How funny! Glad you were able to extract the pin... kind of like the surgeon after sewing up the patient, discovering his forceps are missing! Oops...

The Idaho Beauty said...

Wow, that's focus, Sherrie, not to notice a pin under there! I once missed removing a straight pin apparently as the quilt's recipient told me he kept getting poked by it but it was imbedded such that he couldn't get it out. That was embarrassing. Then there's the wall quilt that still has a piece of freezer paper template behind one of the diamond shapes. I only know because of pressing my finger on that diamond and feeling it in there, kinda does a pop pop thing. How did I miss one of many and not catch it until well after the piece was completed?

At least you were able to "surgically" remove your pin. Did Dr Dave assist? ;-)

Thanks for showing how you get your spiral quilting going. That's a neat trick.

Living to work - working to live said...

This made me smile!! I've done something similar on many occasions with dress making pins!!

Judy Ferguson said...

We have all done this. Put your solution was perfect. One of those accidents that turn out for the better.