I've Got This Covered! - Good Fortune, Part 1

Right before our long trip we had people over and I had to put all my sewing stuff away. We have been home for a week now and I am slowly starting to reclaim my sewing space. But not without a fight - from various inanimate objects.

I successfully pre-washed the red and neutral fabrics. The edges did fray, but not too badly.

I set up the ironing board and started to iron and soon realized that the pad that came with the ironing board needed to be replaced. I had ordered one a while ago, so I thought it would be a quick, easy job. But nothing about it was quick or easy. First, where was the pad? A lot of my sewing stuff was in our son's old bedroom. I pulled several large tubs out from under the bed and rummaged through them. No luck. I looked in all the cabinets in the laundry room. Nope. I looked in the basement where more sewing stuff resides. Nada. I finally located the new pad in one of those stackable plastic drawers in our son's bedroom. That must have taken about 45 minutes.😣

I have an extra-wide ironing board. It works better for quilting. It came with a small metal tray on the end that serves as an iron rest.

There is no space between the iron rest and the end of the ironing board. One would have to pull it out in order to replace the pad. I pulled as hard as I could, but it didn't budge. I turned the ironing upside down to look for the little lever that would release it. It was kind of dark, so I picked the board up and moved it over to an area with better light. There was no lever. Absolutely none.

I tried pulling on it some more. I tried it with the ironing board upside down.

If I could remember the brand of the ironing board or where I bought it maybe I could Google it for instructions on changing the pad. I ended up Googling "how to change ironing board pad" and wouldn't you know that several folks have made YouTube videos on this. But none of the videos had an ironing board with a metal tray on the end. They were just plain old ironing boards with plain old ironing board covers. Do you really need a video to show you how to do that?

Eventually I asked my husband to help me. He tried pulling on the iron rest. It wouldn't budge. He got a screwdriver and a hammer and applied some strategic taps and it started to move.😙 Once the stupid iron rest was loose it was very easy to put the lovely new cover on. I really like it. It's much fluffier than the old one and it even has a little pocket for the special measuring cup for filling up the iron or for snippers or for anything else that is usually in the way on top of the ironing board.

Another 45 minutes? At least.

So I ironed all of that pre-washed fabric and snipped off all of those loose threads and started cutting some strips.

I used my new ruler stickers to help me cut my strips. They worked like a dream to remind me what line I should be using.

 
Then I was ready to sew, so I had to get my dear, sweet sewing machine out. I had put it away before our trip because we had people over and then we had a house sitter, so it was better to leave it under its dust cover. I schlepped it across the house and put it on my sewing table. When I checked the thread I realized the spool holder thingy was missing. Oy! 😞 

I wondered if it was left behind when I put my machine away ten weeks ago. Could I have seen it later and stashed it somewhere for safekeeping? I looked through all of my sewing bins and baskets and all possible logical places to put a thing like that. Unsuccessfully. Then I decided to look some more in the sewing room. I looked under the baseboard heater. Then, in a moment of pure inspiration I spotted it on the carpet, behind the table leg. You could only see it if you really looked. I suspect it fell off when I took the cover off my sewing machine today and bounced off the table without making any noise. Is that possible? That was probably a 30-minute delay.

Fortunately, I had no further problems of this sort. I sewed a few sample pieces (four-patches, as it happens) and then measured them in accordance with Bonnie Hunter's instructions. They weren't as perfect as I wanted them to be, but I honestly wasn't sure what to do about it. I had measured carefully and cut carefully and pinned carefully and sewed carefully. I followed Bonnie's Instructions to the letter. Despite my best efforts some of the pieces had one square that stuck out a little. How can this be?

What I ended up doing last time was making about 5% extra pieces. If one turned out badly, I could throw it out and I'd still be ok. I think that's the easiest way to do this. I'm still going to be as careful as I can, but I'm not going to sweat it if a few pieces are less than perfect. I just won't use those. Yes, I've got this covered!

Some of my 4-patches

Link to Bonnie Hunter here: Bonnie's Link-Up, Part 1 and see what this looks like in all sorts of different colors. So much fun!

Lessons Learned:

• When you are nesting two seams together, make sure they nest accurately all the way to the end.
• Make 5% more than you need to allow for imperfections to be replaced.
• Allow extra time to get set up for a big quilting project.
• If a spool holder (or any other part) ever comes off your machine, always put it back where it belongs (on the machine) immediately.