Failed Challenge

You know this girl loves a challenge.


Okay, so not all challenges.  Definitely not ones that include getting covered in dirt and eating disgusting food.  YUK!


But I do love challenges when I am given a topic or a material or a deadline or a puzzle.


I recently fell head over heels for a challenge proposed by one of the ASG neighborhood groups I sometimes attend.  The challenge was to document a very expensive item and then recreate it for pennies.


Yahoo!  I knew what I was going to do even before I left the meeting in January when this challenge was proposed.


In the August/September 2010 Threads magazine there was an article on how to construct a hard sided clutch.

I wanted to try this out and came up with a couple of examples of little hard sided bags, one of which was going to be my inspiration.

So far so good.


Four days before the challenge was due I sat down and began to construct a hard sided clutch and here are the results from two hours before it was due to be presented:

Yup... I tossed it while it was still in pieces.  The instructions seemed easy but I forgot Rule Number One when it comes to trying new techniques.

RULE NUMBER ONE

READ AND FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS.

Once again I read some of the instructions and followed some of the instructions and came out with a useless result.

Where did I go wrong specifically:

• Cut all the fabric to what I thought was the right size and, of the seven pieces of fabric needed for this project, three were cut too small.
• Used extra heavy duty fusible web when light duty was recommended thus the glue seeped through the silk fabric and made it stiffer than petrified wood.
• Cut the chip board interior boards raggedly so the edges curled a little for a too loose fit.
• Thought that hard Timtex could replace soft felt padding.

My dollar investment was less than $3.00 for the chip board and I have enough left over to try again.  Everything else was already in the stash and were primarily leftovers from other projects.


Next time I try this I will start off with one tool not mentioned in the instructions:  a strong person (read Paul) to cut the chip board.  My hands are not that strong any more and I really mangled the cutting process.


Until then, on to my next challenge of trying to figure out why Alex and Kelis are so stressed this afternoon.  


Could it be because I am eating pretzels while writing this?  


I may need to do an experiment to solve this mystery....NOT!