Monday, December 21, 2015

Lessons Learned Linky #1

Welcome to the inaugural installment of the Lessons Learned Linky! This is your chance to see how truly imperfect yours truly is. Oh yes, I almost forgot; it's also your chance to share your quilting growth, discoveries, helpful hints, ideas, and things you wish somebody would have told you sooner.
I stink at labeling. But it gets worse! I wanted to be like all the cool kids with their labels that can be sewn into the binding. Kati at From the Blue Chair shared her fancy labels from Etsy, and I splurged. The price isn't terribly high per label, but it's bulk ordering. Prices for colored woven labels start at $60 for 150 labels. I decided it would be prudent to spend an extra $10 for twice as many labels.
After much back and forth about the design with Steve from Hong Kong, I gave up on adding my name to the logo, and gave confirmation on my order.
The labels arrived.
Unfortunately, they are basically useless for their intended purpose---being able to be stuck in the binding and allowing me to avoid hand sewing a label on after a quilt is finished. Don't get me wrong; they're lovely. Just useless...and $70. Head hung in shame. Womp womp.
What I didn't know was that there are heap loads of label types. Cue the graphic sent by Steve of World Wide Label after I told him of my source of buyer's remorse. The key is specificity.
I'm giving it another go. Here's to not wasting another $70. If that happens, I will COL (cry out loud). And I don't want that to happen, because my husband will think I'm having a deranged postpartum moment. And it's not my cutie pie son's fault. It's these stinkin' labels that I still don't want to hand sew on a quilt. With fingers crossed, I'm cueing the new design.
Ika Print also does labels, so if you want some of your own, and aren't set on woven ones, they are another possibility.
There's also FinerRibbon, which you can read about on the My Quilt Infatuation blog.
Update: I should not have put the "Made by Afton Warrick" part upside-down because when you flip it up, it turns it upside-down.

Lesson Learned: Label fold types are many.

Don't think my folly ends there. I'm got another embarrassing surprise for you. After many more hours than I'd like to admit, I made a diaper changing thing-a-ma-jigger. It was beautiful. I mean, it was beautiful. Cue the before shot, aka evidence of former glory.
Now, it's time to startle my audience with a mangled mess resembling a "Don't Drink and Drive" campaign.
It all began as an experiment in using iron on vinyl in an effort to match my changing pad to my fabulous bag. So now I'm thinking this whole disaster is Cotton + Steel's fault for not producing a laminated cotton. Now it stands to reason that something iron-on will not respond favorably to being put in a drier. But let's face it, un-washable things do not belong in my child-ridden life. So now I'm thinking this whole disaster is my cutie pies son's fault. Sure, a person could take it out of the washer before it hits the toasty drier. But let's be honest here, it's only a matter of time before that's not going to happen. Because I forget things, like that iron-on vinyl melts with heat, as that's how I got it on the fabric in the first place.
I'm going to selvage what fabric I can from this, and make myself a new one with laminated cotton.

Lesson Learned: Iron-on vinyl hates the drier.

Then, I had a brilliant idea at the post office. I'd get postcard stamps, so I could save money and send fun designer postcards I picked up from Quilt Market for thank yous.

Smart idea, right? Except I forgot they were postcard stamps, and confused them for regular Forever stamps. And I put them on who knows what, or how many, packages before realizing how I went wrong.  So I'm sorry to all of you who got envelopes from me with insufficient postage. I hate it when people do that. (Like the time my mother-in-law sent a Dollar Tree toy with one stamp, and I had to drag all the kids to the post office to pay a couple bucks to break it free because I thought the withheld item was going to be much more illustrious.) Now I'm that person. Rag!

Lesson Learned: Postcard stamps look deceptively like regular stamps.

That's surely not all my mishaps, but it'll do for now.

Please join me. The linky will continue throughout 2016, with the first linky party concluding at the end of Janurary. To encourage you to play along, I'll be offering a prize to one randomly selected linker. Grab the button and leave the other participants some comment love.

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9 comments:

  1. Great idea! I'm linking up an older post, but it's a lesson learned from winding too much (or too tightly or both) polyester monofilament thread on a plastic bobbin.

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  2. This is a great idea, I will keep in mind joining in the future.

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  3. Love this idea - the mistake I seem to keep repeating is sewing in something upside down and only noticing after the quilting!

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  4. Does it make you feel better to know it wouldn't have survived even if you didn't put it in the drier? The iron on-ness comes off in the wash and it comes unstuck from the fabric

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  5. I can't do the linky thing, but I will confess here to a fusing accident where you have to use a damp press cloth to adhere the fusible to the fabric. You guessed it . . . I adhered the fusible to my damp press cloth . . .

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  6. I didn't realize you were starting this already...I'll join up later as well.

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  7. I'm going to love this linky....now to get some posts written, cause I'm sure I have lots of lessons to share! :)

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  8. Great idea for a link party, Afton!

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  9. Thanks for the link party Afton! I love this post, it kind of made me laugh as I have similarly had many mishaps :) I'll have to write a better post to link up next time.

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