FAME!

For most people, fame is being a rock and roll singer or movie star, but not me. I write an email to Quilter's Home which was published in their letters and -- Voila, I have my 15 seconds of fame. Most people get 15 minutes, but trust me, this is only worth seconds.

It all started when my good friend Denise had the opportunity to give someone a free subscription and I immediately snatched it up. Quilter's Home is a great magazine and totally hysterical sometimes. Originally inspired by Mark Lipinski, it has had a different slant on many quilting stereotypes. I love it, of course!

I had been reading Denise's castoffs, and so greedily grabbed my very own January, 2010, copy out of the post office box. I looked at the front cover showing a modern quilt with what was immediately recognizable to me as longarm quilting. I looked closely at it, since that's my thing, and then I saw it. Needle Deflection! I have had issues with this and I am sure every longarmer has. It's when the Tension Gods strike and the stitch doesn't catch underneath. It's usually erratic and happens most often on curves so it can be a real beast. Remember also that the longarm quilter may not even be looking at the quilt as she quilts but at a pattern at the back of her machine so may not even see the problem until the entire row has been quilted. Correction is a tension nightmare while the quilter figures out if it's the thread tension, the quilt top tension, the quilt backing tension, the type of thread, the needle, the fabric used as the backing --you see the pattern, it's a horrendous dilemma sometimes to figure out what went wrong.

Repair of Needle Deflection is one of two things. 1. Taking out the quilting and putting it in again --doesn't always work because that place in the quilt didn't want to quilt in the first place, why would it want to now. 2. Repairing by hand or on a small sewing machine also works. The size of the problem and where I am in the progress of the quilt determines for me how I will repair it. I have done both.

So I am not surprised to see Needle Deflection in anyone's quilting; I am only surprised to see it on the cover of a quilting magazine. Since I am feeling chatty, I write an email, gently, I hope, telling Quilter's Home about the January, 2010, cover, just so they'll know, not really thinking it would be considered a letter.

I get phone calls. I get emails. Have I seen the February/March, 2010, Quilter's Home? I'm in it. My little email is published as a letter under the heading "Um, excuse me...." Hence, my fame. Just in case you don't get the magazine, here's my claim to fame.

Um, excuse me....
I love your magazine and just started receiving it as a gift from a great friend. I couldn't help but notice that the sample shown on the January 2010 cover had needle deflection in the quilting. Needle deflection can be the bane of a longarm quilter's life, but it is very noticeable and easy to repair. Someone needls to look more closely at the pictures of quilted items.
Quilt on,
Barb Whyte
Hebron, OH

Ok, I noticed it too. I said it was easy to repair. Oops to me. It's easy to spot but not always easy to repair -- it's not hard, just tedious. Like all do-overs.

So I think my fame is done!