If At First You Don't Succeed...

 ...get the ripper.

Ha! A necessary evil in the sewing kit is the seam ripper. You can be sure I have several. Known as Jack (The Ripper) to many quilters, when one is needed, it can't hurt to have one placed near for convenience.

Can there be a more telling picture than a knee collecting threads from removing stitches? This was only the beginning. At this point, I had a long way yet to go. Take a look...

I finally beat the procrastination bug yesterday afternoon, and began quilting. The quilt has been loaded for two weeks, but I have been avoiding the big step of beginning. Maybe I knew I was going to have trouble? Anyway, as I neared the end of the first pass of the long arm, little alarms were periodically sounding in my brain. As I turned the bars to move the quilt for the next pass, I saw all this mess on the back. I knew I couldn't leave this. If any fixing was to be done, I could not add another stitch of quilting until this was cleaned up.

So, I pretty easily decided to take it all out and start over. 

Rome wasn't built in day. Baby steps. Learn by doing. And undoing. (You can continue adding platitudes, while I finish with this.)

With an additional 30 minutes of picking this morning, I have finished removing stitches. Now a day of sewing with Sharon (who is here now!) and perhaps this evening, I will return to this and get things right.

 Perseverance will pay off; I just have to learn the hard way, sometimes. If it's worth learning, small mishaps like this must be met head-on. I know I can get the hang of this!

Happy Quilting, Friends!