From: Amy
Subject: Measure once, cut twice.

A few years back as a new homemaker with plenty of time on my hands, I had started reading a quilting forum. I was intrigued by all of the neat stuff people made, so I took it upon myself to learn to quilt. I decided to make a baby-sized quilt to start, since my sister was building her family. But, not having a sewing machine, and, ya know, having never successfully sewn anything in the past, I was doomed from the start. Youthful enthusiasm had me by the throat, though, so I grabbed some old jeans in different colored washes, some scissors, a needle and some thread and set to work.

I learned the hard way the old adage of “measure twice, cut once.” Though technically I didn’t even measure… erm.. at all. I suppose I thought that as long as the squares LOOKED uniform, it’d all work out.

Wrong.

What was meant to have alternating vertical stripes has more like… alternating squiggles. And wonky edges. And a pocket (seriously?! Who told me that was a good idea?!).

When I finished the quilt top I was proud, but embarrassed because… well, look at it. Instead of throwing it out, I went ahead and sewed a backing on and then made another fatal error: tying it off with cheap yarn. I guess you could call that the rotten cherry on top of this crapfest.

Three years later I still keep it around as a reminder to measure twice, cut once.