Sewing Nightmares

My youngest daughter loves her blankie. It's a nice flannel blanket my mother made for her with a nice satin trim. Trouble is, Little Bit likes to take it everywhere and I'd rather she kept it nice and clean in her bed. So, I had this brilliant idea of making her a second, very similar blankie to carry on her adventures around the house and in the car. I thought it couldn't be that hard--it was a big square of flannel fabric with satin ribbon stuff sewn around the edge.

Off we went to our local Walmart for the supplies. I found a cute flannel print very similar to the favored blankie and the same colored satin edging and thread. Great! This was going to be so easy, I thought.

I got the supplies home and after I got the girls down for their naps, I got started. First, I had to dig out the sewing machine. It's this cheap number my husband picked up a few years ago that neither of us ever used (bought in a moment of nuttiness when we thought we'd sew our own curtains...) My first challenge was figuring out what to do with the thread. We'd lost the instructions, but thanks to the internet, I had them on my laptop...I was going back and forth between my laptop monitor and the sewing machine trying to figure it out. There was this bobbin thing to get thread around and load AND there was the main thread thingy to load. Not to mention threading the needle.

I finally got it all figured out and was ready to go. I cut the flannel and pinned the satin edging around it. I was ready to sew. I started slowly then realized the pedal thing was like a gas pedal--the harder I pushed, the faster I could sew. Wow!! With as fast as this thing's going, I can sew all sorts of things. So, I sewed along. Zip! Up the first side I went until I felt this tugging. I looked down and saw that I had somehow grabbed the bottom of my shirt and had sewed it to the blankie. Arghh!!

No worries, I thought...so I cut the thread, released my shirt, and began again--careful not to snag my shirt again (it probably would have been better if I'd used a table or counter and not a TV tray scooted up next to my recliner, but that hadn't occurred to me.) I went along like lightning! While pushing the fabric through I was imaging all of the wonderful things I could sew.

That was until I was done and looked at what I had sewn. My stitches (is that what you call them?) looked like a crazy, erratic heart monitor readout of a person having a series of heart attacks. Not at all like a steady, even stitch that should have been there. Then I realized that I hadn't exactly cut an even square nor had I conquered the corners with the edging correctly. And my blankie had a tail. Yes, a tail. But by this time the girls were up and I had to get them. So, I went ahead and gave Little Bit her blankie.

She wasn't fooled. She knew it wasn't the real blankie, but it'll do in a pinch. Everyone who has seen this pitiful example of my Hapless Homemaker talents laughs. But, Little Bit likes it OK...she even seems to like the "tail"--she uses it to drag it around the house. Still, I find her sneaking up to her room and stealing a few moments with her real blankie. I guess there's no separating a girl from her true love.