Six and a Half Down and ... Disaster!

Uh-oh! Just when it was going so well!

I started on the 7th motif, and immediately started to have problems with the needle grazing the metal of the walking foot, as if the foot had slipped slightly down and forwards.

I thought that perhaps the screw fixing the foot to the shank had come a little undone so went to tighten it, but it wasn't that - the screw was tight, but the foot was a bit wobbly on the shank.

Closer inspection revealed that on the plastic/rubber part of the foot which the shank of the machine sits into (and is then secured by the screw), a phlange has split, so the foot is not firmly attached to the shank, thus allowing the foot to slip, and the needle to catch.

Boo.

Four Down, Sixteen To Go...

I've quilted the fourth motif this evening - although I'm not going to attempt to post a pic, given that blogger is playing silly beggars at the mo. I can't log in properly, or comment on blogs (yet can still post here) - I wish the techies would get a move on and fix it.

Quilting the Spring Garden Trellis quilt is rather like '10 green bottles', but with 20 quilt motifs - and at one or possibly two motifs per session, it's going to go on a bit. I'm afraid that the countdown to zero will be a bit tedious for you lot, although not so much for me - after all, this is the first time I have quilted (besides the placemats/runner), so I have a novelty factor to keep my interest going.

But never fear, it's only a couple of weeks until the next Christmas quiltalong day, though, so that will break things up a bit!

Three Down, Seventeen To Go...

Yep - this quilt-wrangling lark is getting a bit easier! Hurrah!


Having said that, I've still only quilted two motifs this evening in the hour & a quarter or so that my concentration span holds out for - but no matter, it is not a race, after all!

This quilt is not being particularly densely quilted, as I'm taking the advice that QuiltSue emailed at the end of January, when I was dithering on how to quilt my Project 1 placemats & runner.

She said, "The closeness of your lines is less important than that the spacing should be fairly even. In other words, you don't want say 2 lines an inch apart, then a six inch space before the next bit of quilting. The closer you do your quilting though the stiffer it will make your quilt".

I don't want to go mad with quilting the life out of the quilt as I want it to drape nicely, so the plan is to have the quilt stitching lines about a couple of inches apart all over, and mindful of this, I'm going to quilt an 'O' in the square in the middle of where the four motifs meet, which will also match the one in the centre of each flower.

One Down, Nineteen To Go...

... or Why Aren't All Quilts 12" square?

There seems to be a great deal of wrestling involved when machining the quilt motif, with a lot of pushing and pulling to manoeuvre the trace line to be in line with the next plunge of the needle - but that apart, I'm pleased with how this evening has gone.

Although I'm rather hoping that each one will get quicker to do - I'll still be here at Christmas if I don't speed up a bit!

Come Back and Finish What You Started...

Well, that did not go exactly what you might call 'to plan' -

- Trace flower motif in centre block of quilt using air pen.
- Manoeuvre quilt on machine
- Get poised with walking foot, King Tut thread, correct tension etc etc on machine
- START SEWING everso slowly with severe level of concentration
- After 3 inches of sewing, get up to answer ringing phone
- Have long chat, get sidetracked, do other stuff
- Return much later to complete sewing flower motif - quilt still carefully positioned in machine
- Note lack of tracing due to air pen markings having vanished & 3" line of lonely stitching


Round two will be tomorrow.

With the phone turned off.

Final Practise!

This is a practise with the walking foot - I sewed to the outside of the flower motif, trying to track the lines evenly.

One or two wriggles on the outer outline of this - but I'm happy enough.

I am now going to Make A Start properly. Eek!

The Right Tools for the Job

Look what's just arrived in the post!

Can't fault c9store on Amazon for customer service (promptly answering a couple of email queries that I had about the items), despatch (ordered placed on Monday afternoon, arrived today), or price (£26 for both feet including p&p).

Can't wait to have a play!

Christmas Quiltalong! May, pt4

Now I am VERY HAPPY INDEED - and I will show you why.

Here is my practise sandwich, with my template which I have I traced round with the air pen. On the Spring Garden Trellis quilt, one flower will fit into each block.

Then I sewed round it.

Spot the difference in the two photos above - no? Precisely!

I've matched the tracing pretty damn well, I reckon. Oh - changing to points on the petal pair intersections was a deliberate decision - trying to go round a semicircle in 4 stitches seemed too fiddly, so now each one will be a small point.

And here's the back view:

And stitching detail.

I suspect that smugness is not an admirable character trait, but right now, I am Mrs Smug of Smug Street, Smugsville.

I'm quitting whilst I'm ahead - to go an pour a glass of something, I think!

Christmas Quiltalong! May, pt3

Increasingly, my QAL day turns into a QAL weekend, but I can't help that - I can only stretch time so far, and last night it was not far enough to finish all I had planned.

No matter - here are this month's finished Scatty Stars blocks along with the previous ones, and now I am going to have a look around the world to see what everyone else is up to.

Then I shall bite the bullet and make the template for the quilting pattern for Spring Garden Trellis ready for a practise sandwich.

Christmas Quiltalong! May, pt2

I'm not making very quick progress today - there seems to have been a lot keeping me away from the sewing machine.

On the plus side, being in the kitchen no longer constitutes a health hazard, there are fewer cat hairs on every surface and dinner is cooking in the oven. On the down side, I've only got as far as laying out the two blocks ready for sewing.

I'm going to have dinner then hope to get at least the blocks sewn and pressed - and maybe make the quilting template for Spring Garden Trellis, and (pushing my luck timewise) perhaps quilt a practise block...

Christmas Quiltalong! May, pt1

Here we go again - the monthly Quiltalong! Kind organised by Sue and Cathi, and this month Sue is providing the metaphoric drinks and nibbles whilst we are all at the party.

I'll be getting the instruction sheet for the next two star blocks through soon, and I have my fabric, cutter and machine poised.

Apart from this month's blocks, I also want to press on with the Spring Garden Trellis quilt. I've sat on my hands with this one, I know - but then I'm not sure that I know what I'm doing!

I have a plan of action to get me going again, though - now I've decided that free-quilting is not the way forward with this one, I'll cut a proper block sized practice sandwich and transfer the quilt design from my template and have a dry run with that...

Ha! Wish me luck!