Scientific Quilter

Broken Experiments

I consider this blog an experiment. After my image frustration with my last blog post, I realized I had a problem with this experiment. This week I also finished a pieced apron I was working on and found it was WAY too big. This reminds me that there are a lot of times in crafting and in science when things don’t go the way you expect.

If you are a fan of Mythbusters, you probably know that things don’t always turn out the way we expect in science. I love their scientific process – I think this will work, I am trying this, no it doesn’t work, what else will make it work? Encountering problems and road bumps is actually great, even though it doesn’t feel that way. Problems or failed experiments don’t make them scientists – it just means that they have to make adjustments to their plan as all good scientists do.

In sewing or crafting, just look at the mistakes I’ve made lately.

The Apron

This is very cute and is what I was wanting in terms of color, but it goes down past my knees close to my feet. It’s my bad for missing a step on the directions. At this point, I haven't made a decision on how to remedy this, or if I even want to do so. It needs a lot of trimming on the sides if I keep it intact.

The Shrinky Dink Pins


I found this tutorial here off of a pincushion blog post for "Shrinky Dink" fabric pins. I thought they would be great. I made some and they didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to look. (I wanted my own version of the flat flower pin for quilting people rave about.) The pin wouldn’t lay flat and in my efforts to get them flat, most of the pins fell out of the Shrinky Dinks. I am unsure if this is a problem of unrealistic expectations, or execution. If it's an execution problem, I should try a few other things: different pins, gluing the pins down in the correct orientation first, different pin widths, location of putting the pins in the Shrinky Dinks, or baking at a different temperature - to name just a few.

My Camera Bag

Let me just say this isn't a complete failure. It holds my camera and I like the colors and fabric used. It is also my first finished project of late. I based the bag portion of the project off of this tutorial. The bag is cute, but there are two things I consider wrong here. I added the straps horizontally instead of vertically (there were no straps on the original project) and so it hangs funny. I also ran a zig zag stitch on my straps over the top of a straight stitch, but didn’t match up the straps all that well.

At this point, nothing has been fixed, modified, corrected, tested, or even really scientifically or artistically analyzed. This is perhaps due to a fascination with "startitis" (wanting to start something new before finishing and correcting something old), or the nature of crafting, or a non-professional (read lazy) viewpoint toward fixing these mistakes.

A true scientist would spend the time and energy towards getting these projects finished, getting a satisfactory result. There is some joy in that, trying to figure out the problems, create acceptable solutions. There is also some joy in letting mistakes happen, and letting them be. A shining example of something that isn't done as eloquently as should be done - something that may show up later as a "look how far I've come now" moment.

At this point. I haven't decided. I do know that I am embarking into another fairly time consuming project starting tomorrow, for which I am excited. For now, I am content for letting some time elapse between the failed experiments and their possible solutions.