Quilting Mishaps

It’s been an interesting week in the sewing room to say the least! I’m getting used to having another person in my sewing room and our new employee is quickly learning all the many steps to piecing a quilt. Speaking of which, here’s their first pieced top!

free motion quilting | Leah Day

Now for the mishap – this was entirely my fault, though in 10 years sewing and quilting I’ve never made a mistake like this.

free motion quilting | Leah Day

My old iron failed after the new employee starched and pressed over 10 yards of fabric for various quilts. I picked up a new iron (I usually go for the cheapest variety at Walmart), and was pressing multiple step outs for a quilt, moving from the cutting table to the ironing board to the sewing machine pretty fast, so I left the iron plugged in and hot the whole time.

Well, for the first time EVER, it slipped off the ironing board and landed flat on my cutting mat. And then proceeded to melt right through!

free motion quilting | Leah Day

If Josh was the dancing kind he would have done a jig to the tune of “I told you so! I told you so!”

Yes, he’s been sleeping badly for years worried about what might one day happen thanks to my irons left plugged in and hot. Well, lesson learned. It only took melting through the corner of a $250 huge table sized cutting mat to get the message!

So all in all, it wasn’t a bad week. We got a lot accomplished together, but definitely have a few things to learn about multiple people in a small sewing / cutting area, and all the many tools as well as attitudes that come with having an employed person in your sewing space.

Here’s to next week! Let’s hope I don’t manage to melt through anything else!

Let’s go quilt,

Leah

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

6 Responses

  1. Jackie says:

    Quilting s a very dangerous hobby – burns, cuts, anxieties just to name a few mishaps.

  2. Kara says:

    Oh no! Your poor dad and mat! The great thing about fingers is that they heal (I sliced my finger recently and had 6 stitches), mats don't. 🙂

  3. Noela says:

    Hope this is a one off week Leah. A good reminder to all of us to be safe and think about what we are doing. Hope your Dad's finger isn't too painful. Hugs……

  4. Josh Day says:

    Thank you so much, Judy, for that tip! That's perfect. I will be sure Leah implements it ASAP!

  5. Judy D in WA says:

    My tip for the iron left on…plug it in to a power strip along with a lamp. If the lamp is on, the iron is on. All you have to do is turn off the power strip and everything is off. This has saved me on several occasions!

  6. Laura says:

    You had quite a week!! I do the same thing that Judy does above, with her iron. It's in a power strip with a lamp and that's always the last thing I see when I leave my sewing room.

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