Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara logo

A Stitching Mistake

Last night I finished stitching the text on Live on Little by Plum Street. The verse on the chart is “How great the blessing and vast the art To live on little with a thankful heart.” While I think the verse is great and I do love it and I would hope that when/if the time comes that we are living on little, I would have a thankful heart, but at least at the current time, I don’t feel like we live on little. Of course, there are many who live on way more than we do but there are many who live on less. I feel very blessed to have a good marriage, Vince and I get along great almost all the time. We’re human and we’re very different so there are a few disagreements. . . but we do enjoy our time together and we think alike on most issues. We have a comfortable home; we have the food we need and we feel secure about our future. I feel even more blessed with the family that loves me – an almost 91 year old uncle who is physically and mentally in great shape; Chad, Nicole and Addie are close and we’re able to spend time with them. I felt like saying we live on little wasn’t an honest statement so I changed the words to “How great the blessing and vast the art To live every day with a thankful heart.”

After I finished stitching the words and looking at it last night, I thought . . something isn’t right.

I haven’t gone back and dotted the “i” yet (there are two of them but I don’t know how to type that). But . . the mistake: On the top line, the “b” is stitched wrong. When I stitched that, I thought . . that doesn’t look right. I checked it . . obviously not very closely because it is wrong and from the “b”, the words blessing and vast are all one stitch too high. Bringing it down is going to cause the “g” to be too close to the “d” in day. I could have worked around the “g” if it had been in the right spot but to fix that, I would have to take out “To live every day” and spread those letters out. That’s a whole lot of “fixing” for one letter being off.

I showed it to Vince and he said “leave it” . . he said he would never have noticed had I not told him. Can I live with it? I don’t know. I don’t want to look at that piece for the rest of my days and think . . that top row is off.

Here’s what I think I’m going to do: Leave it for now. Finish the piece. Order the frame. Pin it in the frame and stick in the frame temporarily. Hang it on the wall and look at it for a few days. If it bothers me, I’ll take it down (it would have to come down anyway because I’ll lace it and not leave pins in it), rip it all out and fix it.

Would you leave it or would you fix it??

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. If it bothers you possibly change to How great a blessing and vast…would still be unstitching but might give you the room to fix just that line of stitching. Love your work

    • THANK YOU! That’s perfect! That would give me all the room I need to make it fit. Makes it much more “fix-able”.

  2. That one I would leave. I didn’t see the difference until you pointed it out. If it were very obviously noticeable, that would be different.

    • That’s how I’m feeling. Once it’s in a frame and on the wall, I’ll post it again and then we can all decide. 🙂

  3. I would leave it. I couldn’t see anything wrong–even after I read what happened. I think it’s a wonderful piece, and I especially like how you changed the verse.

  4. I think it looks great as is, but love the “a” change… however, will you have to make your flag more narrow than the pattern shows? It looks like it was supposed to start below the and — just between the a and n? Or just remove a bird. I’m sure you’ve got this all charted. 🙂 Whatever you decide will look great!

    • Yes, I’ve already charted out everything that has to be changed. I’m not so sure I will stitch the birds. I removed one so there will only be two if I do stitch them. I was thinking of putting my initials and the year in place of the birds.

  6. I like the fix Kathy recommended, removing the first few words and raising them instead of removing all the others. I didn’t notice the difference but only you will know how you will feel about it later. I love your change of “live on little” to “live every day” and I might make that change too.

  8. Part of me says leave it and another part says (if it was me doing it/seeing it), I’d probably have to re-do it because I’m afraid it would jump out at me. Kathy’s suggestion sounds good to me.

  9. I would have never noticed if you had not pointed it out. Then I had to look very hard to see what you were talking about. I think it is just fine the way it is. No one but you is going to know it it not like the pattern.

  11. You already know I’d leave it. I can’t even see what you’re talking about, really. It looks fine to me. Life is too short to redo things. LOL. If it bothers you, put it away for a while, give your brain a chance to forget what it’s seeing, and maybe it won’t bother you any more. =)

  12. To be honest the bottom line drew my attention first – it looks like there needs to be more space between the a and the t in thankful. Didn’t notice anything else until I read through it all and it still does not attract my eye as a mistake.

    • If I have any extra space after stitching the flowers in the border, I may move “with” over a bit. It is close but that’s how it had to be for the letters to fit into the spaces.

  13. I still don’t see anything wrong, the “b” just looks like one of those speciality fonts. There isn’t another “b” to compare. It looks great!

    • I stitched it wrong and it ended up one stitch too high, then I lined the other letters up with the previous letter and that sent the rest of the row up one stitch too high.

  14. I’d probably fix it. It’s a big project and my eye would always go there. Someone else might not notice it but I would. I’m a process stitcher and not as much of a product stitcher though so the extra time to fix would not bother me.

  15. Life is way too short to ‘sweat the small stuff’, and my FIRST thought when I saw your stitching was I really like the verse — it wasn’t that something wasn’t right. It’s like that when I’m quilting – if the mistake is small that it isn’t easily noticed I don’t worry about it, I just finish it. The same applies in other areas of my life, too — I don’t want to fret about the small things. Merry Christmas to you!

Discover more from Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading