Unpicking

Here I sit ... unpicking ... all day long. My least favorite part of quilting. If any of you haven't had to do this you are amazing.
I made a crib size quilt, quilted it on my machine and it looked horrible. I already messed up piecing the back, I am not adding terrible quilting on top of that. There were so many puckers and the quilting took away from the quilt top. Nothing looked right so I made the hard decision to unpick and try again. I hate wasting time undoing something, especially when I have 4 projects I am trying to get done at the same time. I'm running out of motivation to care about any of them.

I feel your pain! I did this with a quilt I made for my daughter (messed up quilting). I rolled it up, put it in a plastic bag and stuffed it out of sight for another day! Ugh. It's haunting me and needs to be done....

Maybe it is time to set it aside for a spell and move on to something else...and then come back to it later!;)

I had that problem with a quilt a while back. Started ripping every thing out then just got fed up with it and cut most of it apart. You really have to be careful with the backing while you are quilting to avoid puckers. Puckering on the front could be from to thick a batting or to much pressure on the foot. Set it aside for a while, take a break from it and go back to it later. Maybe in the mean time you can work on one of your other projects.

I have a small baby quilt that I made. Really like the quilt and thought I would try some FMQ on my machine. I posted pictures and everyone thought I did well for my first time, for which I was happy, but I was still not happy with it. I had only quilted three of the four borders because I had run out of thread. After looking at it for a couple of days, I took all of the quilting out! I washed it and now it is waiting for me to try again. I'm really afraid but maybe I'll give it another try this weekend. Don't give up, tomorrow is another day....

Call me crazy, but I don't mind picking out too much - it's kind of like ironing and watching all the wrinkles disappear. But walking away for a bit is a good strategy too - do something else that makes you happy and your desire will return. Best of luck to you!

I make lots of stupid mistakes when I'm working on paper-piecing - fabrics facing the wrong way, didn't cut the fabric large enough, etc. I am now beginning to use a razor blade to rip seams. First time I saw someone do this my mouth dropped open! I was altering a costume at the shop where I work sometimes. I made a mistake and Faye had that mistake ripped out in seconds. I tried it yesterday with my rotary cutter (if you try this be very, very careful). It worked just great! I am now going to use a single edge razor blade. Should be safer! I start by opening the seam with my seam ripper to expose the threads. Touch the blade to the threads and voila! Seams ripped!!!

Twosies today: In the knitting world they call that frogging . . . you know, rippit, rippit, rippit. Sometimes it is a good therapy.

When Mom was teaching Sis and I to sew the only thing we used was a single-edge razor blade to take out seams. I was so glad when I learned about seam rippers. I find if I have my stitch length set the right size that I can slip that seam ripper in, and cut every third or fourth 'loop' and just pull the back thread off.

Lay it down, don't fret, come back tomorrow after you have done your other projects and you will float through this one.

Fortunately I have not had to unpick a sandwiched quilt yet any way, but I do have a block that I am making for a quilt that did not turn out right, the point just arent quite right so I have put it back in a bag and will get it out in a few more days and redo it, I could not face re doing it straight away..... on holidays in 2 more shifts..... oh so much quilting to do :)

I use a razor blade but I still use my seam ripper too. It depends on the size of the mistake. Just be careful when using a razor not to cut your fabric!

I came back to the quilt today, finished ripping out the quilting and decided I would try to baste it first. Sat down to baste and realized, I didn't have my walking foot on. That means I didn't have it on for all the quilting! Banging head on table - no wonder it puckered so badly. I hate dumb mistakes. Ah well, the quilting was off anyway.

Oh My don't bang your head on the table.............you might hurt the table.......Attachment 26478

I think we have all become good friends with our seam rippers. I can remember when I first learned to sew using a razor blade...man I hated ripping out stitches then. Who ever invented the seam ripper deserves every penny they made on the thing!

I've had to do this, too. I don't have a stitch regulator, so picking my "fast" stitches was very hard.

You could always do a Frogging party too, complete with bottle of wine! I used to do this with friends where we would all bring projects that needed some ripping, we would trade them off! Somehow it isn't as much of a pain if you're helping with someone else's project! LOL