Murphy's Law

Good afternoon!  It has been such a long time since I have had a chance to share with you.  Do you ever have a project that almost everything goes wrong?  I call it "Murphy's Law"!  My latest finish was one.  I belong to a wonderful group on FB called "Sew Swapit".  It is a group of fabulous quilters that sign up to "swap" projects with one another.  I love getting the little surprises in the mail from my swap partner!  It's better than Christmas!

The latest swap was a Fall themed swap.  I decided to use the disappearing 9-patch block from an earlier tutorial in my swap.  The fabric I chose reminded me of all the beautiful foliage I remember when I was growing up in NW Pennsylvania.

I decided to make 2 additional blocks and make a table runner.  Easy, right?  Well I thought so.  Enter Murphy.  I allowed plenty of time to make the table runner.  Then a few other deadlines snuck in.  Such is life.  Then, WHAMMY!  I was bending over, trying to add basting pins, and I threw out my back.  No sewing for me.  Ouch!

I went to the doctor, and rested my back.  I was so worried I wouldn't have my swap ready in time.  After about 4 days my back started feeling better.  Time to quilt.  I decided to give my table runner a little modern flair while practicing my FMQ (free motion quilting).  What do you think?  Is it too much?

I chose a different FMQ patterns for each section.  All the large squares had a meander pattern, the small squares a concentric square, etc.  I began quilting, when Murphy struck again.  I turned the runner over, to check my stitches, and lo and behold there was a huge fold in the backing fabric!  Ugh!  Time for the seam ripper.  I really like all the quilting, but it took such a long time.

Finally, I was ready to bind the runner.  I decided to try the easy binding method.  I trimmed the batting and folded the backing fabric to the front to make the binding.  I should have known that anything that said it was "easy", was too good to be true.  Good ole Murphy again!  As I was trimming, I accidentally sliced a small hole in the binding.  I had to decide if I wanted to cut it off and add a traditional binding, or try to patch it.  Luckily I could patch it.  Whew!  What an ordeal!  I hope my swap pattern likes it.  Maybe if I send her a lot of chocolate she will forgive me.  ; )

Thanks for letting me share my story.  Please leave me a comment.  I would love to hear your stories!

Have a crafty adventure today!
Anni