Lessons Learned

Sometime around now (give or take a month) is the nebulous second anniversary of when I started quilting and sewing again in earnest. I think I have a ton more to learn, although I know I’ve learned a great deal in the intervening months.

While finishing up another stuffed animal last night, I was really amazed at the difference a little experience with hand-sewing binding and closing up stuffies can do for hiding the stuffing hole seam. Compare the first one I made a little more than two years ago, when I really only knew how to whip stitch (poorly, at that)…

… to this latest one (which I’ll post about after it’s delivered to the recipient’s father once he’s back at work):

I think the stitch is called the ladder stitch, if you want to look it up. My actual stitch is some sort of hack I figured out when starting to bind quilts and not wanting the thread to show, so it’s probably not precisely the ladder stitch.

But, sometimes the lessons are a little harder. When I set out to start quilting by making a baby quilt for my oldest friend’s son, I knew absolutely nothing about quilting. Sure, I’d been sewing on and off for about fifteen years, which is why some of my choices probably didn’t faze me at all, but it’s really not very smart quilt production. It has faux-Minky, flannel, silk, eyelet, linen-textured cotton and cheap quilter’s cotton all thrown together.

It’s also incredibly well loved—to an extent that I only hope the rest of my quilts can ever match, possibly all together. As a result, I got a message from my friend showing that the silk is starting to completely wear away.

I think the only solution is to applique a better-lasting fabric over the top of those pieces, correct? (Short of completely deconstructing the quilt and re-piecing, which is not an option.) I would love any advice you have about fixing damage like this.

Two years into my journey, I still don’t think that you can’t use non-quilting cotton in quilts, but there are disadvantages, and I feel pretty safe in saying don’t use silk in a baby quilt.

What have you learned over the years? Have you encountered bad choices that you’ve had to compensate for down the road?