The Emperor's Invisible Quilting: A Sewing Machine Cover for the Bernina 750 QE, Part One

Tedious, Unrewarding, Utterly Invisible Quilting In Progress

No, I have not been away on a glamorous vacation during the two and a half weeks since I last posted.  I have merely been busy cleaning, organizing, and shedding things (especially hoards of fabric remnants) that I don't really want, will never use, but that have been taking up valuable real estate in my office and studio.  Meanwhile, I concocted a scheme for what I thought would be a "quick and easy" project to sandwich between all the big, long haul projects I've got going on.  I started making a dust cover for Big 'Nina, my 750 QE.

Sewing machines don't like dust, so you're supposed to cover them up when they're napping, just like little birdies.  My Bernina 750 actually did come with a dust cover for this purpose, but first of all it's UGLY, and second of all, it doesn't fit the machine when I have it lowered into a custom cabinet with an accessory thread stand attached to the back -- and that's how my 'Nina ALWAYS takes her naps.

See? The Bernina Dust Cover is Too Tall for a Recessed Machine

New Cover Will Need a Cutout for my Thread Stand

If you do a google search, you can find LOTS of creative tutorials for making elaborate patchwork sewing machine covers that are embellished with decorative stitches, ribbons, buttons and beads.  My idea was supposed to be simpler -- no pockets, no frills, just a streamlined version of the ugly Bernina cover, about four inches shorter and with a cutout at the back.  I found the perfect fabric in my stash:

'Nina Tries On the Fabric, Kaffe Fassett's Millefior

The fabric looks good on 'Nina, and more importantly, it looks good in my studio:



Fabric In Situ

It even goes with my coffee cup!  But it's a quilting weight cotton, and I wanted to give it more bulk, body, and stiffness so it would hold its shape instead of draping limply over the sewing machine like an old sheet.  So I decided to quilt it, densely but unobtrusively, so as to give some stiffness without detracting from the fun, busy print.

Since I'm not working from a pattern, I took some measurements of my machine and did a mockup out of the cheapo muslin first. Once I checked the fit and marked the location and size of the cutout for the thread stand attachment, I ripped out the basting stitches holding the muslin cover together so I can use my mockup as pattern pieces.  My plan is to quilt the snot out of a square yard of my Millefiore fabric, and then cut it up and use it just as I would use a fabric that came quilted from the mill.  That way I don't have to worry about predicting exactly how much shrinkage happens during the quilting process.

I had some fusible polyester craft batting left over from a purse project my mom made several years ago.  Since I WANT stiffness for this project, that's what I used for the batting.  Plain old bargain bin white muslin for the backing, which no one will ever see, and a 40 weight cotton variegated machine quilting thread from YLI in the needle with 50/3 red cotton thread in the bobbin, size 90 Quilting needle.

As I said, the quilting is fairly dense because I'm deliberately trying to make my quilted fabric stiff enough to hold its shape nicely.  As usual, I vastly underestimated how long it would take, and how boring it would be, to execute this quilting plan.  Behold, the right side, after hours of stitching and at least THREE entire gargantuan 7 Series bobbins' worth of thread:

The Emperor's New Quilting, Which We Can't See Because We're All Fools

You can't see anything, can you?  Just a bumpy texture.  That's exactly how I wanted it to look and feel...  But you can tell how much time I've put into this when you look at the BACK side:

From the Back Side: What the Smart People See

Sharp-eyed smart people will notice that the back of this piece is very messy, with thread tails and knots where I stopped and started and some lint fuzzies caught in the bobbin stitches.  I made an executive decision to use my auto thread cutter and ignore the resulting thread tails and other issues on the back of the quilt because it's NOT a quilt, and this is going to be on the INSIDE of the sewing machine cover where no one will see it.  So this has turned into yet another example illustrating that I am incapable of coming up with ANY ideas that are either quick or simple.  As you can see, I'm practicing several different free motion quilting fills, and that's good for me whether it's invisible or not because quilting is all about developing muscle memory, like dancing.  Hopefully not TOO much like dancing, though, because I'm not much of a dancer...  I can't work on this for longer than an hour at a time because it's repetitive and it's boring to be putting in a lot of quilt stitches and then stand up from the machine and not be able to see any of the stitching, but there's still SO MUCH left to be quilted...

Thus the quilting continues.  I'll blog about my machine cover again when I've finished custom quilting the yardage.

Meanwhile, I have been attending the boys' summer drama camp performances, Disney's The Little Mermaid Jr. last week and Anders' Good Kings Come in Small Packages performance this evening.  Lars has been away at sleepaway camp with his confirmation class compadres all week long, so we're looking forward to having him home again tomorrow.  Also, Quilt Week is coming to Charlotte next week, and although I wasn't planning far enough ahead to preregister, I am planning to pop over there and try to get into an EQ7 workshop and perhaps a few lectures if space is still available.  Wish me luck!

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone!

5th Grade Raffle Quilt Update: All Blocks Quilted, On to the Borders

I just wanted to post a few quick photos of the 5th grade class raffle quilt that I've been frantically working on for the past few weeks.  The original due date is TOMORROW, but I have an extension until next Friday (whew!).  The actual raffle or silent auction or whatever isn't until May 15th and 16th. 

50/3 Mettler in Upper Left, 40 wt YLI Variegated Thread Everywhere Else

I finally got all 22 blocks quilted and I've just started stippling the borders.  I know that I originally said I was going to just do "minimal quilting or tie the quilt," but I lied.  I did free motion quilting in each block, outlining the shapes and figures in each child's painting (the paintings were scanned and printed directly onto fabric using EQ inkjet printer fabric sheets and an Epson inkjet printer) and then I filled the backgrounds with a variety of free motion quilting patterns to make each student's artwork more dimensional.  Hopefully everyone likes how I "decorated" his or her block, because my seam ripper is put away in the drawer and it is STAYING THERE!

 

I played around with a lot of different fill patterns and threads, sticking with a gray Aurifil 50/2 in the bobbin to save time and switching between 60/2, 50/3, 40/3 and 30/3 cotton threads for the needle.  At first I thought I wanted lighter weight thread that would blend into the fabric and disappear, but the heavier variegated threads really grew on me for this project -- I think they are a nice complement to the bold lines of the students' artwork.

I found a great Kaffe Fassett print for my border, and I'm stippling around the little "fireworks" print thingys with variegated YLI machine quilting thread:

Back to my quilting!  I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

5th Grade Raffle Quilt: And the Quilting Begins!

I just wanted to post a few quick photos of the 5th graders' raffle quilt in progress.  The top is assembled with borders and I stitched in the ditch around each batik block frame with my walking foot. 

Loving the XL Throat Space on the 750 QE

As you can see in the photo above, I was able to use my walking foot to stitch in the ditch inside each block frame, pivoting and turning the quilt ninety degrees at the corners.  I was able to scrunch up the entire length of the quilt in the throat space when I was quilting around the outer blocks. 

So now I'm finally able to do the free-motion quilting in the blocks.  I'm outlining the flower, leaf, and branch shapes in the children's artwork first, then filling in the background with different fill patterns to give the artwork some dimension.  At one point I considered adding some machine trapunto behind some of the shapes in the artwork to make them really pop out, but then I had a reality check when I looked at the calendar and remembered that my deadline is May 1st for this project. 

I started out using some 40 weight variegated YLI machine quilting thread in the needle with 50/2 Aurifil in the bobbin.  I want to stick with the gray bobbin thread because I really don't have time to be constantly changing the bobbin, even though I am changing colors in the needle thread to complement each student's art work.  The 40 weight thread looks okay for some designs, but it's not my favorite and I wasn't wild about how the stitches looked on the back of the quilt with the 40/3 top thread and 50/2 bottom thread combination.  So I switched to a smaller needle and got out my 60/2 cotton embroidery threads, which work better for quilting designs that involve backtracking anyway.

My stippling is getting better, but I am not in love with how that feather thing came out at the top of this block.  Ah, well.  At least it kind of echoes the veining on the adjacent leaf.  Somewhat.

So far I have quilted 5 of the 22 blocks.  We have a busy weekend planned, and I have several meetings and appointments early next week that cannot be rescheduled, so I may need to ask for an extension.  The actual Night of the Arts event when the class projects will be auctioned off is not until May 15th. 

Of course, the more I'm typing, the less I'm quilting!  I'm linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's Patchwork Times. 

UPDATED 4/29/2014: I'm linking up to Esther's WIPs on Wednesday, too -- because I'm still quilting away like a mad woman and I don't have time to post new pictures yet!

Lederhosen FINISHED!

Final Lederhosen Fitting -- SUCCESS!!

...And they FIT!  Which is fabulous, since I had NO backup plan in case they didn't fit and tomorrow is the first dress rehearsal.  After the young actor tried them on, I took the lederhosen back to my studio to decorate them:

Finished, Decorated, DONE.

That's better, isn't it?  I cut the fake welt pocket leaves out of felt and used 505 Temporary Spray Adhesive to position them next to the side seams.  Same with the extra leaf that I added on the placket thingy.  Then I used my BSR foot, stitch length 3.0, to free-motion the edge stitching to the lederhosen with jeans thread.  I added the little swirly things around the placket leaf the same way.  What did I learn?  Well, I thought that free-motion quilting was challenging with a flatbed setup, but it's MUCH more difficult to FMQ when you have to use the free arm because the pants are already assembled -- if I had this to do over, I'd have done the "decorating" before sewing the side seams together.  I did it this way because I didn't want to waste my time embellishing something that didn't fit and had to be scrapped.

Could I add more decorative swirlies around the faux pocket decorations?  Would the lederhosen look more authentic with a little knife pocket on the side seam?  Absolutely -- but this is a costume for a school play, that will only be worn for three performances, and I have put plenty of time into it already.  So I'm calling it Good Enough!  Back to my Jingle BOM!

Dresden Plate Quilting is COMPLETE! Now, To Bling or Not to Bling?

Well, here we are, 5 days after the birthday, and finally the quilting on the Dresden Plate project is finished.  I just quilted in the ditch along the sashing, border, outside of plates, around the red flower applique, and in between the plate wedges, using Aurifil Mako 50 weight cotton thread in the bobbin and invisible nylon monofilament thread in the needle, and I like how the "invisible" quilting gives each plate so much dimension.  Trimming out the backing fabric behind each plate was a good call; even with my batting and minky backing, this quilt is still very "smooshy" and flexible, not stiff at all. 

I did experiment with spray basting, using 505 temporary adhesive spray.  I sprayed my batting rather than the quilt top or backing fabric, and found that the spray adhesive worked VERY well to adhere the cotton quilt top to the cotton batting, but was less effective adhering the slippery backside of the polyester Minky fabric to the cotton batting.  Next time I do this, I think I'll lay the batting down, then spray and attach the Minky on top of the batting so I can make sure I got every little ripple smoothed away, and I'll spray both the batting AND the Minky.  Then I'll flip the Minky/batting over and adhere the quilt top.  I did pin baste as well, and although I had a little bit of slippage with the Minky it was nothing major. 

This was the first time I used the new Stitch-in-the-Ditch sole plate for my walking foot.  I like it -- see how that blade rides along right in the seam?  I was able to quilt these long, boring lines between blocks much faster, without having to watch as closely to align my stitches right next to the seam allowance.  However, when I got to the posts between sashing strips where the seam allowance was pressed the other direction, I found that the blade on this sole obstructed my view of the needle and that it did NOT "automatically" switch from one side to another well.  You can see what I mean in the next picture, the first post I quilted with this foot:

On subsequent posts, I just slowed down as I approached the yellow square and stuck my face down there by the foot so I could carefully maneuvre around the post square, and then I increased my speed and went back to "cruise control" afterwards.  That worked fine.  Overall, the new walking foot sole did improve my ditch quilting considerably:

Quilting "In the Ditch," Stitches Disappearing Right Next to the Seam

I quilted all of the plates free-motion, with my BSR foot.  Again, loving the invisible nylon thread for this.  I used a 75/11 Quilting needle and reduced my upper thread tension considerably, and also reduced my presser foot pressure.  I put the invisible thread on a separate cone thread stand behind and to the right of my machine to allow plenty of room for the thread to unwind and unkink itself.  I still had the thread loop up and knot a couple of times -- the sound of stitching immediately changes and the stitches become instantly more visible because the top thread is so taut that it lies flat on top of the quilt instead of meeting the bobbin thread inside the quilt.  So when that happened, I just stopped, found the place where the nylon was caught, fixed it, and continued.  Maybe putting a thread net on the nylon thread would have helped -- it was an older spool, getting toward the end, so the thread was very "curly" from having been wound around the spool.

I love how the quilting stitches "carve" the plate design into the Minky backing, even though you can't see the actual quilting stitches due to the pile:

Quilting around Plates, Backing Side

But once all the plates had been quilted, I had to contend with that plateless center block.  What to do there?  I couldn't skip quilting it because it was a 13" block and my batting recommended quilting no more than 8" apart.  Yet I didn't want the center block to be too obviously quilted when all of the other blocks were quilted invisibly along the plate seams.  After mulling my options for a few hours, I finally decided that I had to just make a decision and go for it -- I no longer had the luxury of time to test out a bunch of different options.  I switched to a red thread, since there were no seams for ditch quilting and I would only be quilting against the red background fabric, and I ended up tracing around a Dresden plate on template plastic to make myself a pattern. Then I drew that shape onto my center block with a white marking pen.

Marking a Dresden Plate Around the Embroidered Block

I tried to echo quilt around the embroidery, adding some loops and swirls, and then quilted a ghost of a Dresden plate around the outer edge.  I'm not sure I 100% love it, but I didn't have any better ideas and this gift is already late!

Center Block Quilted

I wanted to do about the same amount of quilting on that center block as I did on the others, but the single line of quilting around the outside of the "plate" looks very puny all by itself like that.  In retrospect, I wish I had appliqued a big circle onto this block for the monogram, maybe even a plate with tiny 1-2" wedges around the outside and a huge center circle for the embroidery.  Then I could have quilted it in the ditch with the invisible thread just like the other blocks.  Or maybe I should have used a contrasting thread to quilt this block, so it would stand out more?  Anyway, it's done, and I'm really pleased with how the quilt as a whole is turning out.  It's VERY soft and cuddly, with no stiffness whatsoever, and it will only get softer after I wash it -- I starched the quilt top before I layered and basted the quilt, so I'm definitely going to wash the quilt before I wrap it up and ship it.

Soft, Smooshy and Cuddly! 

Today I need to trim away the excess batting and backing fabric along the quilt edges, which I'll do by serging along the border edge.  Then I'll encase the edges of the quilt with dark pink 2" satin binding...  and then, will it be finished, finally?  Well...

I ordered a whole bunch of Jet Black Swarovski hot fix rhinestone crystals for this quilt, intending to put sequin-sized rhinestones at the outer point of each plate, and sprinke a few smaller black rhinestones across the yellow centers of each appliqued flower.  My darling husband thinks I should not do this.  Wise, sensible people have warned me that rhinestones can fall off in the wash, and that they are not snuggly -- but with this quilt, you're going to snuggle the Minky side against your skin, not the front of the quilt, and honestly, the crystals are so small and smooth that I can't imagine they would be a scratchy nuisance.  They would be so FUN...  Little girls love bling, right?  Well, we'll see how I feel about it after the quilt is bound and washed.  It's my quilt, and I'll bedazzle it if I feel like it!  I'm a totalitarian quilter at heart.  Just think of me as the Quilting Stalin, or the Quilting Mussolini.  Those who object can face the firing squad, or learn to make their own quilts!  ;-)

Belated FMQ Challenge from January: Frances Moore

My Belated January FMQ Challenge

I actually watched Frances Moore's January YouTube video tutorial for the SewCalGal 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge several months ago, and I've attempted this leafy vine motif several times in the past.  At this point, I've just sort of accepted that this particular design is not my thing, but I'm committed to completing all twelve challenges by the end of the year, so today I got out some pretty blue-flowered fabric, rolled up my sleeves, and made up my mind to do the best with it that I could.  

A few points of interest for this month's tutorial: Frances quilts without using any frames, hoops, special quilting gloves, or stitch regulators.  She suggested using a heavier 40 weight thread for this design with a 90/14 Topstitching needle and a lighter 50 weight thread in the bobbin.  When I first watched this tutorial a few months ago, I emailed Frances and asked for more details about how she quilts so successfully without the obnoxious sweaty gloves that everyone else is using -- can you tell I hate wearing gloves?! -- and she wrote back that she rubs a few drops of pure glycerin into the skin of her palms and fingertips to get them just tacky enough to to grip her quilt without needing to wear rubber gloves.  I have tried several different brands of gloves that other quilters rave about and have loathed them all, finding them cumbersome, uncomfortable, and sweaty, so I sent my darling husband out to CVS for the glycerin.  The people who worked at the drug store were not aware that they stocked it, but Bernie eventually found a little bottle of CVS brand glycerine for a couple of dollars and, for me at least, this magic sticky potion does the trick.  I am so grateful to Frances for sharing that trick with me!

What I SHOULD have done!

One of the reasons I selected this fabric for this particular quilting design was that the shape of the blue flower petals is so similar to the leaf shape I was trying to quilt.  In looking at what other challenge participants had done with this motif, as well as how Frances has used it in her own work, I had decided that the leafy vine quilting design was most effective on projects that had a tree or flower theme.  As I worked my way through my own sample, I was discouraged as I began to realize that my all-over quilting design looked like scribbles and was detracting from the fabric pattern rather than enhancing it.  Not until I had almost completely quilted my 15" x 15" practice piece did I realize that it would have looked a lot better if I had outline-quilted the flowers printed on the fabric, and quilted the leavy vines in the spaces between the flowers.  Unfortunately, by the time I had this epiphany I only had one little flower left to test it on, at the very corner of my sample.  You can see it on the left in the photo above.  Much better, right?  That way the leaves complement the flowers instead of fighting them.  Woulda, shoulda, coulda!  I'll keep that in mind for next time, for sure.  I wish I had enough of that fabric left to do a do-over!  

As for Frances' other suggestions: I don't ever quilt with a hoop (unless it's attached to an embroidery module, heh heh!) so that one was easy.  I switched back and forth for this exercise between using my Free Motion foot #24, like what Frances uses, and using my open-toed BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator) foot.  It's good to know that I CAN quilt without stitch regulation if I need to (I didn't use it at all on Lars's Drunken Dragons quilt), but it REALLY is so much easier to learn a new design when I can just focus on "drawing" without having to also think about coordinating the machine speed with the speed of my hands to keep my stitch length even.  Also, I paid a lot of money for my fancy gadgetry upgrade, so I might as well use it!

Bob the Builder on the Back Side: Different Bobbin Threads

I did use the 40 weight thread in the needle (mine was YLI 40 wt Machine Quilting thread) with  a 50 weight thread in the bobbin (I used a turquoise shade of Gütermann cotton thread in my bobbin), and I used a 90/14 Topstitching needle, all Frances' recommendations.  I struggled to get my tension just right using that combination, though, and I ended up putting the same YLI 40 wt thread in the bobbon towards the end -- which instantly improved the look of the back of my quilt sample.  For one thing, I prefer the look of a longer stitch length when I'm using a heavier thread and a shorter stitch length with a very fine thread.  When I use a lighter thread in the bobbin, I just don't like the overall effect from the back side.  

So, there you have it, Folks!  Another FMQ challenge completed.  I still have four more months to make up in addition to the new challenges that will be posted in November and in December.  I want to thank Frances Moore for sharing this tutorial, and SewCalGal for hosting the whole shebang.  

October FMQ Challenge with Teri Lucas

October FMQ Challenge Piece, 15" x 15" Silk Taffeta with Double Batting

I just finished my free-motion quilting sample for the October tutorial on SewCalGal's blog.  Although this is the 10th month in the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge, I still have several months that I need to make up in order to get all 12 finished before the end of the year.  I have to say, I really am seeing huge improvement each month.

This month's tutorial was courtesy of the very talented quilter Teri Lucas.  Some of the interesting twists for the October challenge were:

• Teri suggested a silk or silk/cotton blend fabric for the sample instead of a quilting weight cotton.  I found a yummy scrap of terra cotta silk taffeta that was leftover from a client's drapery project years ago, so that's what I used for the challenge. 
• I almost missed this, but Teri directed us to put TWO layers of batting in this quilt sandwich, a bamboo or needle-punched low-loft polyester batting closest to our backing fabric, and a layer of wool or silk batting on top of that, just beneath the silk fabric.  I found some thin Mountain Mist poly batting and layered Hobbs Tuscany Silk batting on top of that.  I attempted to baste this much-thicker-than-usual sandwich with safety pins, but that was a disaster -- I ended up using 505 Temporary Spray Adhesive between each layer to prevent shifting and distortion.
• Teri also wanted us to play with different threads, which I don't normally do.  Since the silk fabric had a sheen, I decided to experiment with a box of forgotten Sulky rayon 40 weight embroidery thread.  I used the same thread in the needle and in the bobbin, and reduced my upper thread tension down to 1.5 in order to get a nice, balanced stitch on both sides of my quilt sandwich.

Pebbles, Nautilus Shells, and Feather-Like Leafed Thingys

I practiced several motifs that were new to me, like the nautilus shells, pebbling, and the feathery leafy thingys.  Oh, and notice how nice and even my tiny little stitches are?  I have finally gotten comfortable with the "laser" powered Bernina Stitch Regulator (BSR) on my Artista 200E/730E sewing machine.  I set my stitch length to 1.8 and worked slowly, and had no problems whatsoever.  The laser actually counts fabric threads as I move the fabric beneath the needle so the computerized machine can speed up or slow down the needle speed as necessary to maintain that even stitch length.  Pretty cool!

Meandering, Jester Hats, Feather-Like Objects and Today's Date

I also worked on improving a couple of motifs that I'd attempted in the past but was never really satisfied with.  Today's meandering fill stitch (upper right area in the photo above) is the best I've ever done.

One last look:

Completed October Challenge, approximately 15" x 15"

Thank you, Teri, for sharing this wonderful tutorial with us!  It was a lot of fun.

My Free Motion Quilting Journey

My Free Motion Quilting from Class Last Week!

Well, I finally was able to take that machine quilting class in Concord last week.  I ended up being the only one signed up yet again, but this time the instructor graciously agreed to teach the class just for me.  So I got three hours of one-on-one private quilting instruction!  This class was supposed to be a beginner's introduction to machine quilting with a domestic sewing machine, going over basics about batting, thread, and needles, basting, and using a walking foot, among other things.  Since I was the only student and I've done a fair amount of quilting with my walking foot already, we skimmed over that information pretty quickly and moved right into free motion quilting. 

One major frustration I had was that the instructor told me just about everything I had learned elsewhere was wrong.  Harriet Hargrave, a machine quilting pioneer whose book on this subject has been continually in print for 22 years, and Diane Gaudynski, another legend in machine quilting who has taught and inspired so many other quilters over the years through her books and classes, both recommend fine quilting threads and suggest monofilament nylon thread to help beginning machine quilters get past the fear of "ruining" their quilts with ugly beginner stitches.  My teacher last week started off by criticizing me for using the monofilament nylon thread in Lars's quilt, telling me that it "won't hold up" and that "you don't see any prize-winning quilts that are quilted with nylon thread."  She also told me that my 60 weight, 2-ply cotton thread, again recommended by Hargrave, Gaudynski, and other quilters whom I admire, was "too fine; it won't show up" and she had me quilting with 40 weight thread in the needle and 50 weight thread in the bobbin.  She said "the right way" to begin a new line of machine quilting is by stitching in place for several stitches rather than by starting out with a few tiny stitches and then gradually increasing stitch length, as others have advised.  "Won't that create little knots on the back of the quilt?" I asked.  "Judges don't take off for that, and no one needs to be looking that closely at the back side of my quilts," she replied.  Um, okay then! 

Here's the thing -- my teacher quilts beautifully using these heavier weight threads.  However, her quilting motifs are larger, more open, with lines of stitching spaced much farther apart than the other quilters who recommend the lightweight threads.  I think it's a style and personal preference thing, and the thread that works best for one quilter's style might not be the best for another's.  I would have preferred that an introductory machine quilting class would present more options to beginning quilters rather than "my way or the highway."  But I was there to learn, not to argue, so I threaded up with YLI 40 weight variegated machine quilting thread in the needle and Mettler 50 weight 3-ply cotton thread in my bobbin and did as I was told.

I had hoped that this class would be some kind of epiphany, a turning point that would catapult my machine quilting to the next level like the hand quilting class I took with Dierdra McElroy several years ago, but it wasn't like that at all.  The teacher demonstrated a machine quilting design on her machine, then sent me over to my machine to try to replicate it.  She made it look so easy, but I felt like I was doing terribly the whole time.  I never felt good about one design by the time we were moving on to the next one.  I felt like everything I was doing looked horrible and wasn't getting any better at all.  My spirals were wonky, my curves came out jagged, and my stippling was disastrous.  But then, when I got home and was unpacking everything in my sewing room, I happened to find a little sample sandwich of fabric and batting from one of my earliest free motion quilting practice sessions:

Progress!  Current Free Motion Quilting on Pink Fabric, Earliest Efforts Above

See that?  Look how much better I was able to quilt my name than when I first started!  All I've done is maybe 4 hours of practice (total, over the last few years) and I free motion quilted some curliques and wobbly echo quilting in the background of the Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt, but that's it.  I didn't think I'd done enough FMQ to see any improvement in my skill level, so it was a happy surprise to stumble upon this evidence to the contrary.

By the way, I did NOT use my BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator) foot in class at all.  When I got home, I put the BSR on to see if it improved the quality of my quilting any, and I decided that I really don't like it.  I'm used to controlling the speed of my sewing machine with my foot pedal, and I don't know why, but the BSR makes me feel like I'm not in control so I tense up and my stitches come out jerkier.  I also dislike the bulk of the shank on the BSR foot, which makes it impossible to see where you're going when you have to quilt away from yourself in certain directions.  I know that many quilters love the BSR and use it to create beautiful quilting, so I won't write the BSR off completely, but for now I feel more comfortable without it.  I'll put it away for now, and try it again in a couple of months to see if it grows on me.

Quilting Inspiration From End of Grade Exam Proctoring



Quilting Inspiration?


In an effort to be a "more involved" parent, I spent three mind-numbingly boring hours proctoring End of Grade (EOG) Math Testing at my kids' school today.  For some mysterious reason, I was assigned to carry out my duties as test warden in the After Care room rather than in a regular classroom, and there were a total of two seventh-grade students testing in there today.  The After Care room is a dreary, desolate place that is devoid of the posters and students' work which typically festoons the walls of actual classrooms.  Our testing dungeon was enclosed by three grayish-white walls, one garishly cobalt blue wall, and its windows were completely covered with dreary white metal miniblinds (to minimize distractions, no doubt).  There was a white dry erase board, blank except for where the test administrator had scrawled the start time and the time of the next scheduled break, and a few television sets enthroned on their A/V carts were parked in the room as well, but televisions are even less exciting than usual when they aren't turned on.  In fact, the only interesting thing to gaze upon in the entire room was this box of Kleenex:

I stared at this Kleenex box for the better part of three hours today, while simultaneously assisting the teacher/test administrator to supervise two intellectually gifted seventh graders to ensure they were completely darkening the little bubbles on their answer sheets.  I was pretty confident in the students' ability to color in their answer bubbles on their own, and I wasn't about to hover over their shoulders throughout the exam, but the State of North Carolina tapped me to monitor this testing environment and ensure that there were no "irregularities," so that's what I had to do -- with one eye.  Because my other eye was staring at the Kleenex box the whole time.  Multitasking at its finest!! 

Design from Retired OESD Collection #788

Of course, the Kleenex box was only captivating me because I'm on the prowl for quilting design ideas now that I finished quilting in the ditch around all of those big circles.  I went through my stash of professionally digitized outline quilting designs for my embroidery module, and I ended up coming back to the same Keryn Emmerson design (from OESD retired Collection #788, Quilting Inspirations by Keryn Emmerson) that I was drawn to initially (at left):

I'll use my embroidery module to automatically stitch this motif in the center of each circle

The circles on my quilt are 11" diameter, but my sewing machine can only embroider a design with a maximum width of 5.75".  That leaves about a 3" wide ring around my design that I'll need to fill with some kind of free motion quilting.  At first I thought I'd just echo quilt around the design, but that would be almost as boring as proctoring the EOG exams, and if I've learned one thing from my recent free motion quilting adventures, it's that smooth, perfect circles are not reasonable goals for beginners!  Plus they wouldn't really add anything to the quilting design.

So now, back to the Kleenex box (I'll bet the students and the teacher administering the exam think I'm bonkers for staring at that Kleenex box all morning, and then taking a PICTURE of it with my phone before I left!).  Maybe I could free motion quilt some flames/petals/sunshine rays or whatever, similar to the design on the Kleenex box, around the embroidered motif to fill the rest of the space in my circles?  I'm going to stitch out several samples of this motif so I can experiment and practice before I start in on the real deal.

By the way, the jury is still out on the Bernina BSR Stitch Regulator.  I used the BSR for two of my quilt circles, but I found that the foot itself is pretty thick and bulky, and it obstructs my view when I have to stitch away from myself diagonally to the right, so I felt like I was sewing blind for a quarter of each circle.  For this task, I felt much more comfortable using Foot #24 and controlling stitch length manually.  I will try quilting with and without the BSR again when I do the free motion quilting around the circular designs.  Part of me would really like to master free motion quilting without this fancy gadget, because you never know if someday my sewing machine will die a terrible, horrible death at a time when I can't afford to replace it with the luxury, top-of-the-line model.  Pretty much ANY sewing machine can be used for free motion quilting, as long as you can lower the feed dogs and put on a darning foot.

Garden Surprises, Class Cancellation and BSR Revelations

Surprise!  Forgotten Perennials Popped Up in My Garden

Happy Friday!  I had planned to be in an all-day machine quilting class up in Concord today, but fortunately I called yesterday to confirm before packing up my sewing machine and other equipment and driving all the way up there -- the instructor had to cancel due to a water problem at her home, and the quilt shop did not have my phone number.  This is just as well, because I had to help Anders with a persuasive essay last night and by the time we'd read our latest chapter of the Sherlock Holmes classic A Study in Scarlet and I'd tucked the boys in bed, I was pretty tuckered out myself.

At least I was able to meet with Cynthia at the Bernina dealership yesterday afternoon to figure out why I'm having so much trouble using the BSR Bernina Stitch Regulator.  The mystery was solved in about 20 minutes. 



BSR Foot, photo courtesy Bernina USA

The instructions for the BSR say that you can push the "Start/Stop Button" on the front of your sewing machine to start or stop stitching.  I though that must be the button with the curved arrow that looks like an umbrella handle (you can that see it in the photo at left), but I was wrong.  The Artista 200 and Artista 730 machines do not have a start/stop button!  No wonder I was having trouble controlling the machine, since I was pushing the Quick Reverse button that doesn't do a darned thing with the feed dogs lowered.  Duh...  Cynthia recommended using BSR in Mode 1, operating it with the foot control, and using the needle stop down feature to make it easier to reposition your hands as you're working.  Then you just tap the foot pedal with your heel to raise the needle when you're ready to stitch again, and you're exactly where you left off.  Cynthia says you tend to get a big, ugly starting stitch with Mode 2, which is why she doesn't use that one, and I remember having that problem when I was practicing as well.  So I'll be putting these suggestions to work the next time I get a chance to work on Lars's quilt (hopefully today, if I can tear myself away from the computer).  I'll let you know how that works out.

Plodding Along, In Circles

Hello, friends and family!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday. 

I think I'm about halfway done with the free motion ditch quilting around the circles on Lars's "Drunken Dragons" Drunkard's Path quilt.  Thanks to the invisible nylon monofilament thread, the stitching is practically invisible on the front of the quilt -- oopses and all -- but on the back of the quilt you can see the grid of straight stitching that I did along the straight seamlines and the outlines of the circles.  I'm not using that BSR thing to control the stitch length, but I feel like I'm doing alright without it for this task.  The hardest thing is controlling the bulk of the big, heavy quilt while I try to move it in a big, huge circle without any jerks or tugs.  I have lots of jagged spots on my circles if you look closely on the back, so we won't be posting any more close ups of the back from here on out.

One of the sales ladies at the Bernina dealership has agreed to give me a one-on-one lesson on Thursday to show me how to stop and start the expensive BSR Bernina Stitch Regulator contraption and how the different modes work, because the directions that came with the darned thing are atrocious.  People look at me like I'm crazy when I say I can't get the BSR to work for me, which means there must be something REALLY EASY that I'm missing.  My issues are:

1. I'm unclear about how to start and stop a line of quilting stitches in each of the two stitching modes of BSR.  I need the first 5-7 stitches and the last 5-7 stitches of every line of quilting to be really tiny so they don't pull out when I clip the thread tails.  How do I secure my stitches in Mode 1 if the sewing machine is going to make all of the stitches the same length? 
2. I'm trying to stitch 11" diameter circles, but I can only control an area of about 4-6" at a time.  That means I slowly sew for a few inches, then need to stop to reposition my hands.  When I pick up my hands to reposition them, the fabric always moves just a smidge, and the BSR laser contraption picks up on the fabric movement and starts sewing again before I'm ready.  How do I disengage the BSR long enough to move my hands?
3. I tried to use my needle stop down function to make sure nothing shifts when I use my hands, but that's a problem, too -- with BSR, the machine starts stitching when the fabric MOVES, but when I'm ready to start sewing again I can't move the fabric when the needle is sticking down into it.  Am I supposed to use needle stop down, and then manually raise the needle again when I'm ready to stitch?  Then I have to take one of my hands off the quilt to raise the needle, and then the fabric shifts again and my quilting line gets a crooked little snag.
4. Finally, on  my 18" practice sample, I was not getting even stitches with my BSR at all.  For one thing, most of the stitches were much shorter than the length I had set the machine to.  Then there would be random LOOOONNNNG stitches here and there.  Maybe I was moving the fabric too fast at that point?

Anyway, I'm keeping an open mind about the BSR until I have the dealer walk me through it on Thursday.  Then on Friday I'm taking a beginner machine quilting class at a store about an hour away from me while the kids are in school, and that class won't have anything to do with the BSR because it's a Brother dealership, not Bernina hosting the class.  One way or another, I'm going to learn how to do this.  Saturday morning I have another embroidery software mastery class.  The irony is that, with all these sewing classes, there isn't much time left over for actual sewing!

Have a wonderful week.

Free Motion Circle Quilting FINALLY In Progress!

Free Motion Ditch Circle, Backing Side

Lars's Drunken Dragons quilt has been languishing in my studio untouched for the past three weeks, ever since my disastrous initial attempt to quilt "in the ditch" along the 11" diameter circular seamlines.  I experimented briefly with both Mode 1 and Mode 2 of the Bernina Stitch Regulator (BSR) attachment, which is supposed to make free motion quilting easier by automatically regulating stitch length.  For me, at least with the task of trying to place stitches precisely along the seamline, the BSR felt like a crazy robot driving the sewing machine out of control.  Every time I stopped to reposition my hands on the quilt, the machine started sewing again before I was ready.  Maybe I need more practice with the BSR, and the instructions that came with it are horrible -- maybe I wasn't using it correctly.  For instance, the instructions say "disengage the BSR function" but NOWHERE in the instructions does it say HOW to disengage the BSR function.  Tap the foot control?  Press a button somewhere?  Your guess is as good as mine!

Bernina Freehand Quilting Foot #29

Anyway, yesterday I removed the BSR foot and replaced it with Freehand Quilting Foot #29 to try some old school free motion quilting.  Feed dogs down, upper tension reduced for the monofilament nylon thread, and we're flying without a safety net!  There are a number of different feet you can use for free motion quilting.  What they all have in common is that spring in the shank.  Foot #29 is the one Bernina recommends for freehand quilting without the BSR function, and the clear plastic sole of the foot is supposed to give you great visibility so you can see where you're stitching.  Sounds great in theory, but when I was using this foot yesterday I found that the sewing machine light on the shiny clear plastic created a terrible glare that made it impossible to see my seamline accurately through the clear plastic foot.  I pulled out my Feetures books and discovered that there's another foot, Freehand Embroidery Foot #24, that would probably work better for this task.  Amazingly, I do not already own this presser foot.  My Bernina dealer is out of stock but expects it to come in with their next shipment in a few days, so meanwhile, I'm stuck with my clear foot.

Free Motion Quilting "In the Ditch" with Foot #29

Bernina Freehand Embroidery Foot #24

See what I mean about the glare?  The foot I'm waiting on has an open toe front, which should make it a lot easier to see the seamline I'm trying to follow.  I don't have any idea why they call it an embroidery foot -- I would think the ends of the open toe would get caught in long satin stitches if you were using it for embroidery.

Oh, and notice the gloves in the photo above?  I have a couple pairs of quilting gloves with rubber fingers, which are supposed to make it easier to grip the fabric of the quilt.  I hate wearing gloves, but I'm trying to be open-minded so I'm wearing them for now. 

Close Up of my Non-BSR Free Motion Stitching, Backing Side

The stitching itself is far from perfect as you can see in this picture from the backing side.  I am really happy with the busy print I chose for the backing, because from a distance the wobbly lines aren't noticeable at all. 

Close Up Non-BSR Free Motion Ditch Quilting, Top Side with Invisible Thread

From the front of the quilt, the mistakes and unevenness are even harder to see, thanks to the monofilament nylon invisible thread.  When the quilt is washed for the first time, it should shrink and pucker a little even though the fabrics are prewashed and the batting is a silk blend, and that will camouflage the ooopses even more.  It's not perfect, but it's good enough.  I have a feeling that each circle will come out a little smoother than the last one as I work my way through the quilt.

I don't forsee any quilting time today, though.  I have to get in the shower now so I can vote against Amendment One, even though the latest polls indicate that it's likely to pass.  Honestly, I don't see what the fuss is about.  Why do so many straight people feel threatened by gay marriages? 

After voting, I'll head straight to my piano lesson, and from there I pick up the kids from school.  We'll be rushing through homework and dinner tonight so we can make it to Night of the Arts, where Lars and Anders will be playing trombone and recorder with their classmates in their school's annual arts extravaganza.  Less than 5 weeks of school remain before summer vacation!