Save This Quilt- Thinking Out of the Box When Things Go Wrong with Your Project.

Sometimes plans in my head don't actually work out when it come to fabric and sometimes my lack of a plan bites me in the ass. In either  case I am stuck to figure out how to either save a project or if I want to scrap it.

Truth be told I rarely scrap a project but I will put it away for a jolly long time until  I once again trip on it and find new inspiration in what was before a project that was going nowhere.

In the case of "Rare Beauty" I had done the center panel and then was stuck.  I felt like it was too narrow. I added mitered trim borders.. better, but still stuck and missing something.


And there it sat... and sat..... and sat some more as I would try ideas, one after an other only to reject them for some reason or another.

I suspected that I was going to have to take off the borders and damn if I did I not want to do that since I had mitered them and had no more of the fabric with which to replace them.


Stew- Think - Grumble .....................

Since the whole heart of this quilt was applique I came up on the idea of adding applique strips that would look as if they have been pieced into the border... now I was getting somewhere.

So side by side I created an internal border and used some dots of Roxanne Glue-Baste-It to hold it in place as I made sure it was lined up exactly with the seam. 

The Roxanne Glue-Baste-It also made sure that I was getting a perfect miter at the corners.. after all if you are going to fake it you need to do it right!

Next I went around the whole (new) border with a custom sized buttonhole stitch ( thank you Bernina 830!) - Once again the Roxanne Glue-Baste-It was an amazing help here.. no scooting or buckling . just smooth sailing the whole way! 

 Have you gotten the point about how much glue can be your third hand in the sewing room?

I have no idea what is next but at least I am back on the path to getting this piece done!