Are you directionally challenged? What is directionally challenged? Well friends it's something I'm plagued with in so many ways. Number 1- I'm directionally challenged when driving. If the sun isn't shining I have no clue what direction I'm facing or going. Even if I know I'm facing north I get confused about which way is east and west. Yes I know it's always the same, east is to your right if your facing north, left is west. This happens because I get nervous when driving after dark due to night blindness. When my kids were in their early teens we had a little shopping adventure that took 3 hours to get home when it should have taken 20 minutes. All because traffic would not allow me to go home the way I came. My kids still remind me of that horribly hilarious embarrassing day. At least I can laugh about it and know my weakness. Number 2- Quilting on a frame. Feathers give me so much trouble on the sides of the quilt. I sometimes will need to take the quilt off the frame and turn it so the sides are on the top and bottom of the frame. Number 3-When sewing together rows on a scrappy quilt I will often flip the blocks wrong. After 30 years of quilting you would think I'd have this figured out. Nope! Directionally Challenged. It's scrappy so what difference does it make? It only makes a difference when your trying to keep like colors or prints away from each other. To prevent this abnormal flip from happening I made a set of numbered flower head pins. All you need is the pins and a fine point sharpie marker and clear fingernail polish to keep the numbers from rubbing off.
Placing the pins on the left side of each block as I take them off the design wall will let me know if I get one turned or out of sequence.
Then I carefully flip. How could I mess this up without the pins? Who knows! But it happened earlier in the week. Go ahead and laugh, I did...HAHA!
Shew...I think I got this one right. Believe it or not I folded it back just to make sure...geesh.
This is a different row but you can see the pins are on the left side of the blocks and in the correct order. I can now safely remove the pins. Hope this helps those who are as directionally challenged as I.
Thank you for the clear finger nail polish. I've been marking the pins with the sharpie and then as they start to rub off, I mark them again. I'm thinking that I'll run up to the Sewing Factory and redo my numbered pins.
ReplyDeleteYou're not the only one who is directionally challenged, I've got my own stories to tell too. The pins are a great idea, I had a friend gift me a set years ago. Happy Stitching!
ReplyDeletelove the idea for the numbered flower pins, and THANKS for the tip to put nail polish on them. I've found a sharpie marker rubs off on something I was tying to label, so the nail polish will definitely come out next time! And sorry about being directionally challenged: luckily I'm not usually, but when I'm in a strange town with no sun shining, it can feel VERY disorienting, so I feel for you! Do you use google maps when you are out? I hope you can, but then again, I've been in San Jose, Ca (which is a HUGE town tht I'm NOT familiar with, and Google maps quit working, and I was soooo lost!!!) Hugs,H
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