Welcome to today's boring blog post. I'm bored already and I am the one writing it -- not a good sign, but let's begin.
😂. Clearly I was not in a good mood when I started writing this blog post yesterday! Good thing I left it in Draft mode or I might have driven all of you away for good! The blog post begun with a bad attitude yesterday and revised with a better attitude today is about not-so-glamorous prep work at the front end of a project that lays the foundation for smooth sailing and a successful finish. It's like stretching in the morning or flossing your teeth before you go to bed -- you can skip this stuff if you want to, but you'll probably pay for it later if you do! I'll be talking about the foundational stitch-in-the-ditch quilting on my Deco quilt as well as getting my appliqué templates ready for my next Stonefields quilt blocks.
Quilting Begins on My Deco Quilt
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| I Loathe the Drudgery of Stitching In the Ditch Quilting! |
Stitching in the ditch -- quilting along patchwork seamlines -- is utter and abysmal drudgery. If you do it really well, you can't see the quilting at all and sometimes that results in quilting over a line you already stitched because you couldn't see it. But if you wobble or some speck of thread or bit of gook on your carriage wheels creates a hiccup in your straight line of quilting, it will stick out at you like Pinnochio's nose or a lump on the noggin of the Wylie Coyote. And right now I DO have something somewhere that is giving me grief. I wish I'd done a thorough cleaning of my carriage wheels before I loaded this quilt because it's really hard to get to all of them with a quilt on the frame. It could also be that one of the machine's cables is catching on something at the back of the frame and needs adjusting, but I can't see what's going on back there when I'm quilting manually from the front of the frame and Bernie has been too busy lately to help me troubleshoot.
Here's a block in the top row before the ditch quilting:
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| Not Quilted Yet |
Below, I have outlined all of the green squares with stitching in the ditch. Do you see those couple of wobble bumps? Those are happening when I feel my machine catching on something ever so slightly. I am stitching very slowly and using a straight edge quilting ruler as a guide, but then suddenly the machine gets knocked away from my ruler edge by some microscopic obstruction and Bad Words come out of my mouth. For now I am just ignoring it and soldiering on. Every imperfection is glaring when the quilt is on the frame under the bright lights and I am hyperfocused on every stitch. Much of what looks like a catastrophe in the moment ends up not being a big deal in the end, and anything that is STILL a catastrophe at the end can be ripped out and restitched if it still drives me crazy.
I'm using Aurifil monofilament thread in color Smoke (this post contains affiliate links) with Fil-Tec MagnaGlide Classic 60 wt navy bobbin thread, in case anyone is interested. If you can't find MagnaGlide Classic, it doesn't come in the color you need, or your machine can't accept prewound bobbins, Superior's 60 wt Bottom Line or Microquilter would be good alternatives. You can even wind monofilament on your bobbin but beware -- it's prone to stretching so slow your bobbin winding speed way down, only wind your bobbin half full, and recognize that with invisible thread top and bottom it will be much more difficult to monitor your tension throughout the quilting process. Those are the reasons I prefer not to use monofilament thread in my bobbin even though it works beautifully in my Berninas. Oh, and I'm also using Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Black batting. I know that if/when I wash this quilt, the needle holes will close up and my imperfections will be less visible. You don't see the monofilament thread against my green fabric, but you do see tiny specks of black batting in the needle holes if you put your nose right up to the quilt and you have your strongest reading glasses on your face. Ask me how I know this. 👀
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| SID Finished (Sloppily) Around Green Squares |
I deliberately did not SID the seams between navy patches within those blocks because I want to deemphasize those seams and do some other quilting in those areas to make the background recede and the green squares pop forward. These are vague plans half formed in my mind; I won't decide for sure until after I see how my digital designs look stitched out.
My big, boring accomplishment for this week is that I have done this SID quilting to all of the green and navy blocks across the top row of the quilt. I think I am going to rip off my ruler base tomorrow and start stitching the digital designs in the setting triangles between these blocks, because I am hoping that will cheer me up and distract me from my wobbly SID quilting. Imaginary Judge's comments: "Straight lines should be straight." Duh. My dog thinks it looks awesome, so there! ;-)
