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Monday, June 30, 2014

quilting is dangerous business!

I've been at this sewing and quilting business for a LOT of years, and until yesterday I've remained injury-free. Which is sort of remarkable because I'm a tad clumsy - always bumping into furniture bruising my knees, elbows, feet, and hands. But yesterday I cut myself with a rotary cutter not just once, but TWICE! The second cut earned me a trip to urgent care for stitches :(


Nice huge bandage, huh? There wasn't much pain involved, and I almost didn't go thinking I could just wrap it really tight and keep going. But my friend Kelly (who raised three boys) assured me that it did indeed require stitches - three to five stitches to be exact.

Behold, three stitches. Luckily I didn't do any major damage to any tendons or cut through the nail.  (Note the bandage on the knuckle of my middle finger covering the first cut of the day.)


And what were we working on that was so dangerous?? Cutting fabrics for our "Steampunk" quilts using the smallest size rotary cutter and acrylic pattern templates. There are 5 different templates for this one block, and we're planning to make around 75 blocks each - lots of cutting. Here are all the block pieces laid out before sewing...


And here's the first block all sewn together. Lots of pinning was needed, and it was pretty slow going, but I think we are going to create some fabulous quilts!! After a few rotary-cutter-free days for me, that is...


You can view lots of incredible Steampunk blocks here on Flickr and on Instagram by searching for the hash tag "steampunkquilt".  I purchased my pattern and templates from The Quilt Studio while they were vending at  Paducah, KY in April, but you can order them here from their Etsy shop.  More patterns by Jen Kingwell can be found here.

 You should make one too! But be careful with that rotary cutter. And no, I didn't bleed on any fabrics - whew!!

4 comments:

  1. I've admired that pattern for a while... worth a few stitches, Although injury-avoidance of course would be better. Hope you're recovered soon!

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  2. ouch, ouch, ouch! There must be something I the air - I've been quilting for about 35 years and abut a month ago I did the same thing. Hope it heals quickly.

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  3. Oh, I'm so sorry about your run-in with the rotary cutter. I did something similar some years ago and even took off a bit of my finger. My index finger has never completely recovered as I cut a nerve I think. The ER doctor had to have an education on what a rotary cutter even was! I just love your steam punk block.....I'm gritting my teeth to keep from starting another quilt till I finish the ones I have going though!

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  4. Glad to hear you weren't hurt any worse. I've heard stories of much more severe injuries, including running a sewing machine needle through a finger. Any of this is dreadful, so I'm happy for you to be persevering without much pain. I'm sure you're back to rotary cutting already, to keep going on your Steampunk project. That' pattern is sure the rage these days... and way too much work for me! Have fun!

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Thanks so much for stopping by and reading a little bit about me and taking the time to comment! Have a wonderful day!

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