My Frenemy; ROSS
Some of the necessary odds and ends
Do you have a piece of equipment you love to hate? I do. It’s the one I never want to use and yet I rely on it during every project. Usually, more than I want to. In fact, I find it to be the most useful during my most challenging days.
I hate making mistakes when I sew but they seem to be inevitable. (To be honest, I just hate to make mistakes. Maybe I am a bit of a perfectionist?) However I think I am direction-ally challenged by quilt blocks. I can draw them out, in color, look at the picture while pinning the pieces together and still have some of them be wrong!! Even sample blocks laying on my sewing table aren’t enough to keep me from getting my blocks topsy-turvy. My husband, bless him, finds this funny because he is never direction-ally challenged. However, he has learned not to make jokes. Please tell me that I am not the only quilter suffering from this inability to sew blocks correctly.
I’m always either baffled, frustrated or mad when I have to use one. This piece of equipment, if you haven’t guessed already, is the seam ripper. A tool of destruction. Even its name sounds bad. Its easy to picture this as the name of some comic book hero’s nemesis; “Seam Ripper”!
How many do you have? I have eight. That’s right, 8! I keep one every where I may have need of one. The cutting table, the sewing machine has 2, the long-arm quilter, the ironing board. I also have a lighted seam ripper (over-rated in my opinion) and a hooked knife blade. That one I use for French seams and removing buttons. And of course you always have to have a spare no matter how many you have! I have two favorites; one I inherited from my mother. It is just a small, basic seam ripper but it is sharp and has always done a good job. It is my “ole reliable”. My other favorite my husband bought for me a couple of years ago. It is the Dritz large ergonomic seam ripper.
I am trying to turn over a new leaf in my relationship with my seam ripper. It has dawned on me, finally, that rather than viewing it as a negative (or as I really think of it) as my enemy, I should try to think of it as my friend. After all we do spend a lot of time together and it is always helping me out when I’m in a jam. Perhaps I can try repeating “My seam-ripper is my friend” while I use it. I’m sure a more positive frame of mind would help while I prepare those seams to be sewn correctly.
Maybe I should name it? Something that sounds friendlier. Perhaps something masculine? Hmm, Rip-Out-Stupid-Seams? Ross! I like it. “Ross is my friend!” Now, there’s a positive mantra. I’ll give it a try and let you know if I start to like my seam-ripper.
What is your favorite seam-ripper?
Laura