Ok, so as a newbie, I know that I will make many mistakes, and learn lats of lessons from those mistakes. The latest lesson was learned while attempting to make a coaster for my swap buddy in the mugrug swap. I made a two sided mug rug as I could not decide between two designs. So I thought, hmm, I could sew fabric strips that match each side, cut out a square, back each one with pellon, sew wrong sides together, turn inside out, iron, and top stitch. I thought it was a solid plan. (first coaster ever)

Unfortunately, I was out of pellon so I ran to Walmart to get some. Our store has a big full fabric department. Thay have about 15 different kinds of stabilizers, interfacing, heat, bond and pellon. A lot overwhelming for a newbie. I just grabbed the one that said pellon because I had heard of it. Bought a couple of yards and quickly left to finish my cute coaster.

All goes well with my plan....until I begin the top stitching part. The first two stitches are fine, then my machine makes a thunk, thunk sound and shows an error. I am puzzled but determined, so I raise the needle by hand, turn my machine off, to get rid of error message, and doggedly begin again. Thunk, thund, crack! My needle snaps in two pieces! Iam very disgusted by this time, I decide to mail to buddy without the optional coaster. I told my husband I couldn't believe that my machine could not sew thru four layers of material, I thought that maybe it was broken, .....I was thoughroughly disgusted. While cleaning up the mess before I went to bed, I found the red label from the pellon ultra firm. The fine print reads, "Do not attemt to sew. For sewing projects, use the pellon purple label firm."

I was so relieved that I had just made a mistake when I bought the pellon and that my liitle machine would be sewing again just fine. As soon as I replaced the broken needle that is. It is kind of funny now, but at the time it was really not.
Lesson learned, take time to read the fine print in all things!

Please learn from my mistake.
Jennifer