Behold: A Southern Blizzard! "Snowed In" With the Best Beginner Long Arm Quilting Tutorials

Okay, Wisconsin and Minnesnowta readers -- get ready to laugh yourselves silly.  School is canceled today in Charlotte, North Carolina -- in the middle of exam week -- because of treacherous weather conditions that they are calling Storm Three:

Storm Three Pounds My Neighborhood with a Sprinkling of Snow Dandruff

Not only is school closed today, but businesses are closing as well.  My in-box is full of emails from the eye doctor, interior design showrooms, etc., notifying me that they are all closed due to the "storm."  All of my appointments today have been canceled, even tonight's church choir rehearsal, and I have no reason to leave the house at all.  This is clearly a message from the Universe telling me to spend the day with Thoroughly Modern Millie, my APQS longarm quilting machine.

Although I've had Millie since late March of last year, I've only actually loaded quilts onto the frame twice.  The first one was a huge King-sized practice quilt that I loaded in May, and the second one was a printed cheater cloth practice quilt that I loaded back in October, three months ago.  I've spent a lot more time getting a feel for driving the quilting machine around to "draw" quilting designs than I have with the basic process of getting started with a quilt, so now that I'm ready for my first real quilt I've been procrastinating, apprehensive and unsure about how to begin.  I'd walk into my studio and sort of circle around the longarm frame, like she and I were sizing one another up for a bullfight.

The Look My Longarm Machine Has Been Giving Me

But I'm not even the matador in this scenario -- I'm the BULL, y'all!  And I've been like, "You know what?  I'm just going to leave the ring and find a nice cork tree where I can lie down and smell the flowers!  Or cut up the flowered fabric into triangles, or pick out flowers for a new applique project...  You get the idea.

...And I Am Ferdinand the Bull, Who Would Rather Go Smell the Flowers

Ferdinand and I have the same bangs now, by the way.  They look way cuter on him than they do on me.

But no; this is NOT going to be a bull fight!  Longarm quilting is not a violent, barbaric "sport."  No one has to die, the only bloodshed is going to be if I stab myself with a pin, and Millie and I are going to work TOGETHER to create quilty goodness and not as mortal combatants.  I just need to refresh my memory on some basics, boost my confidence, and get over it already! 

"Bullfight: Death of the Toreador," by Pablo Picasso, 1933

So last night I spent some time on YouTube, hunting down the best beginner longarm quilting tutorials.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video demonstration has got to be worth a million words!  YouTube is great, but I wish it was organized better so I didn't have to scroll through so many videos to find what I'm looking for.  There are TONS of videos showing how to quilt various freehand designs, but what I need right now are the basics that a seasoned longarm quilter takes for granted and could do in his or her sleep.  That's why I'm posting these links here, so that I can quickly find them again whenever I need to refresh my memory.  If other beginning longarm quilters find these resources through this post, well, that's all the better!  I watched all of these videos last night and I feel MUCH more confident again.  I plan to rewatch these videos in my studio today as I finish loading my Math quilt today (partial float, I think), thread the machine (variegated thread or invisible?), adjust tension for beautiful stitches on the top AND back side of the quilt, and quilt it with a simple, allover pantograph design.  

Best Beginner Longarm Quilting Tutorials on YouTube:

• ·       How to Load a Quilt on an APQS Frame, Full or Partial Float Methods:

• Sparrow Quilt Co./APQS How to Load (Full Float), Baste, & Quilt a Pantograph: 

• How to Thread an APQS Long Arm Machine:

• How to Fill a Bobbin With the APQS Turbo Bobbin Winder: 

•  How to Adjust & Troubleshoot Bobbin Tension, APQS:

• How to Use a TOWA Bobbin Tension Gauge, from Superior Threads: 

• How to Adjust Top Tension on an APQS Long Arm Machine: 

•  Perfect Tension On Any Model Long Arm Machine, from Jamie Wallen: 

• Using Invisible Thread on an APQS Long Arm Machine, Top and/or Bottom: 

• How to Bury Thread Tails, from APQS:

• How to Unpick Machine Quilting Stitches, from Natalia Bonner:

•  APQS Pantograph Quilting Tutorial:

• Sparrow Quilt Co./APQS How to Align an Edge to Edge Pantograph Pattern: 

• APQS Beginner Tips for Quilting With Long Arm Rulers:

• Angela Walters' Long Arm Ruler Tips:

I plan to update this blog post with additional longarm tutorials as I find them, so please send me links to any great video tutorials that I've missed!  And of course, free to bookmark this post if there's information here that you find useful.

And now, let the quilting games begin!

Today I'm linking up with:

• ·       Let’s Bee Social at www.sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/
• ·       Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/
• ·       WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com
• Needle and Thread Thursday at www.myquiltinfatuation.com

Minky Loves Monofilament Nylon!

Quilting Is Magic!

I'm finally free-motion quilting, untethered by feed dogs and walking feet!  Hooray!  I quilted "in the ditch" around all of the colored patches on this quilt -- the squares and the turquoise half rectangle triangles -- using my walking foot, constantly turning and stuffing the quilt back under the machine while dreaming of a long arm machine on a frame and thinking about how backwards it is to try to draw anything by moving the PAPER beneath a stationary PENCIL, which is essentially what you are doing when you quilt on a domestic sewing machine.

I used SewArt Invisible Monofilament thread in Smoke with a size 60 Microtex needle and 50/2 Aurifil Mako thread in the bobbin for my ditch quilting, because my ditch quilting never stays 100% in the ditch and I didn't want anyone to notice my oopses.  I reduced my needle tension to 2.0 as usual for sewing with monofilament thread on my Bernina 750 QE sewing machine, and put the monofilament nylon on my regular horizontal thread spindle with no net or anything.  All nice and lovely, beautiful stitches, boring quilting:

Wretched, Boring, Invisible Ditch Quilting with the Walking Foot

Speaking of the walking foot -- on the Bernina 7 Series Yahoo users group, there is often discussion about whether one "needs" a walking foot for quilting on a sewing machine that has integrated Dual Feed like mine does.  There are always some who claim to have great results quilting with their dual feed and no walking foot, but there is NO WAY I could do this kind of quilting without a walking foot.  I was twisting and tugging and stuffing that quilt all over the place, and my Minky backing is hellishly slippery and shifty, and the basting spray was probably not holding things together as securely as my violent ditch quilting continued.  Maybe you can quilt straight lines across a table runner, but I can't imagine risking a large quilt that I've put a lot of hours into.  The walking foot is my friend.  It's just really boring to quilt along all those seam lines, and you don't feel like you're accomplishing anything since the quilting really is invisible unless you mess up!

Once I finished the ditch quilting, I planned to switch to using Aurifil cotton thread in the needle for the background fill quilting, but when I tested it on a sample of my black fabric, batting, and Minky backing I discovered that the cotton thread is "grabbier" than the slick monofilament, and no matter what size needle or tension settings I tried, I kept getting some of the Minky backing pile pulling up through the needle holes to the front side of my quilt. 

Cotton Thread Grabs the Minky Pile and Pulls it to the Front

Yuck!  Those white tufts in the stitches are not batting (I'm using black batting for this piece), they are the pile of the zebra Minky backing fabric.  I am so glad I started out with the monofilament, because I don't know if I would have thought to try it if I was having the problem with the pile pulling through right out of the gate.  Anyway, I'm just going to continue on with the monofilament thread, at least for the black background areas.  The monofilament doesn't pull the Minky through AT ALL.  So, note to self -- MINKY LOVES MONOFILAMENT NYLON THREAD!

By the way, I know it's very fashionable these days to diss the meandering/stippling quilting pattern as overused, but frankly this Scarlet doesn't give a damn.  I can quilt that pattern on autopilot and I think it will look good on my baby quilt and play nicely with the Minky batting.  I am also putting little horns and elf booties in my stippling even though stippling is not supposed to have any points, just to annoy any quilt police out there.  ;-)

That's enough typing for today.  Back to the quilting!

Stipplling Like No One's Watching!

My Son, the Quilter: Stitching In the Ditch with Monofilament Nylon on the Bernina 750 QE

Anders Quilting on the Bernina 750 QE

Anders finally started quilting his first quilt on Sunday afternoon!  He has officially graduated from Piecer to Quilter.  Although he pieced his first quilt top on Judy, my 1951 Singer Featherweight, I set him up with Nina the Bernina 750 QE for the actual quilting for several reasons:

1. Mine is sunk in a cabinet, which really helps minimize the drag of a heavy quilt.  Even before we layered his top with batting and backing, Anders was having increasing difficulty controlling his quilt top as it got bigger and bigger and began hanging off the edges of the diminutive machine bed on the Featherweight.

2. I have a walking foot for Nina, but I don't own one that fits the Featherweight.

3. Nina the 750 QE has a cool stitch in her quilting menu that automatically secures a line of stitching with several tiny stitching at the beginning and again at the end.  On most machines, the quilter has to remember to manually adjust the stitch length every time he or she begins or ends a line of quilting, and especially for a child who is just learning, it really helps for that to happen automatically.

You'll notice that Anders selected lime green Minky dot fabric for the backing of his first quilt, which can present some additional challenges.  I spray-basted the thin cotton batting to the Minky first, then spray basted his quilt top to the batting, smoothing out all three layers until they were ripple-free.  Then, for added insurance against shifty Minky misbehavior, I pin-basted the quilt as well, about 2-3" apart.  His quilt top is pretty stable because I had been starching each seam throughout the construction process.  I marked a 1 1/2" grid across the surface of his quilt with chalk pencils, aligning the grid with the seam lines on his blocks, so that all he has to do is straight lines for this one.  Hopefully the lines don't rub off before he finishes quilting them!

Since Anders' fabrics are such busy prints anyway, and since he is bound to have some "oopses" on his first project, I chose SewArt monofilament nylon "invisible" thread for the needle with Mettler 50/3 cotton thread in the bobbin, color matched to the Minky backing.  I wrote a post awhile back with tips for monofilament nylon thread that you can find here).  This was my first time using monofilament nylon on the 750 QE and she handled it beautifully.  With cotton thread in the bobbin, I got lovely balanced tension for this project by dropping the needle tension down to 2.0 (invisible nylon thread stretches, so you always need to lower your top tension for this specialty thread).  Normally I like to use a size 60 sharp needle with monofilament thread for the tiniest holes and least visible stitches, but I put in a 75 Quilting needle for Anders.  He gets his quilt hung up on the edge of the cabinet occasionally and is still getting the hang of letting the quilt move freely through the machine with the feed dogs doing the work.  Those skinny size 60 needles break more easily if the quilter is tugging at all, so I thought the 75 would be a bit safer.

Bernina Walking Foot #50 with 3 Soles

Anders is quilting with a special "ditch quilting" sole fitted to the Bernina #50 Walking Foot.  My walking foot originally came with two interchangeable soles, one of them closed-toe and the other one open-toe for greater visibility.  The new Bernina walking feet come with this third sole that has a metal guide blade in the center to facilitate quilting stitches that land right next to the patchwork seams, on the low side of the seam allowance.  I was able to purchase the ditch quilting sole for my walking foot separately from my Bernina dealer.  It worked really well for Anders since he was able to watch that metal guide and make sure it was following the chalk lines when he wasn't next to a seam. 

Anders managed to get the vertical lines quilted on the right half of his quilt before he was done for the day.  Since he only quilts with me every other Sunday afternoon, it will probably be another couple of months before he finishes this project.  I am SO glad I simplified what I had originally planned for him to make!

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 March FMQ Challenge: Thread Dancing with Ann Fahl



My Belated March 2012 FMQ Challenge Efforts

Having only joined SewCalGal's 2012 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge this month, I was disappointed to see that Ann Fahl's tutorial for the month of March had been removed at the end of the month as per Ann's wishes.  I followed the linkys to see what other challenge participants had done that month, and then I was even more disappointed to have missed out on it.  I ordered a copy of Ann's book, Dancing With Thread, (available here from Amazon, or you can order it from Ann's own web site here) and, using Ann's book as well as the posts and photos from those who completed the challenge during the month of March, I think I was able to figure out the gist of the March exercises. 

Photo from Amazon.com

Now, why did I need another quilting book when I already have so many?  (That's my husband you hear, groaning across the Internet).  My other machine quilting books, by Harriet Hargrave and Diane Gaudynski, discuss how to achieve very traditional effects with modern machine quilting, but Ann pushes the boundaries with quilting that is fresh and modern, a celebration of modern tools and techniques rather than a faster or easier way to simulate the heirloom quilting seen in antique quilts.  I've read all about why I shouldn't use Coats Clark thread or bargain/ancient thread or polyester-wrapped regular sewing thread for quilting.  I've experimented with the 40-weight variegated quilting threads from YLI, and lately I've been using a combination of invisible monofilament nylon thread with Mettler 2-ply 60-weight cotton embroidery thread on my Drunken Dragons quilt, and I like how that looks.  I know that some quilters use silk threads for dense heirloom quilting, although I haven't tried that yet myself. 

Well, Ann Fahl quilts with rayon and trilobal polyester embroidery thread!  To me, that sounds like a diet expert telling me to eat chocolate for breakfast.  The caveat is that Ann makes primarily wall quilts rather than bed quilts -- she knows her quilts will receive very little wear and will seldom be washed, and realizes that these threads are not ideal for every project.  She also uses invisible nylon monofilament thread in every one of her quilts, but only for quilting in the ditch and quilting around appliques or embroidered motifs.  That's kind of how I feel about the monofilament thread now -- I loved it in the ditch, but was disappointed with its invisibility otherwise.  Ann says that she even uses the invisible nylon thread in the BOBBIN, which I had originally wanted to do on my Drunken Dragons quilt but did not attempt because I couldn't find information about anyone else using monofilmant in the bobbin successfully, and I worried about how I was even going to get that stretchy thread wound on a bobbin properly. 

Meanwhile, I have a whole tub of rayon embroidery thread that I never use anymore since switching to Isacord for embroidery, so I decided to play with rayon threads for this exercise, as Ann recommends in her book.  I didn't have the titanium topstitch needle that Ann likes to use for quilting, so I used a Schmetz embroidery needle instead.  I started out with my 60 weight cotton embroidery thread in the bobbin, but then I found a bobbin wound with pink embroidery thread (rayon?  Isacord?  No idea!) and popped that one in the bobbin case.  My batting is Hobbs Tuscany Silk, because that's what I have scraps of at the moment. 

I divided my fat-quarter-sized sample sandwich into four quadrants with purple disappearing marker, and tried my hand at each of the four quilting motifs that I saw in the March challenge linkys.  I did the Loop and Twist design first, because it's similar to the way I quilted most of my Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt.  Since the quilting on that quilt came out much denser than I'd intended, seriously shrinking up the quilt top, I deliberately tried to keep my loops and twists larger and more open this time, with more puff between the lines of quilting.  I liked it, and I think the larger Loops and Twists might even look good in the heavier variegated YLI threads, on the right quilt. 

"Loops and Twists"

Next, I attempted the variations with stars and hearts instead of loops.  That was harder than it looked!  The stars were kind of fun, but my hearts all look like sickly philodendron leaves.  It's okay; I'm not a big fan of hearts, anyway! 

Stars and Hearts

On to the spirals!  I have to admit, I didn't care for the Spirals when I first saw the drawing, but when I started quilting them with the rayon thread, they were so much FUN!  I've been practicing other kinds of spirals a lot lately -- the kind where you spiral from the outside in, and then spiral back out again, and I discovered that Ann's version of cutting straight out from the center is a lot easier and less stressful for me.  It also looks better in thread than it does in a black and white drawing.  I'm so glad I tried it, and I'll definitely be using that soon. 

Spirals

Last but not least, Spirals + Petals = Little Flowers.  Again, I don't see myself quilting flowers onto a project any time soon, but you never know.  The most interesting thing about this exercise was learning to travel out far enough from the previous flower to have just enough room for the next flower, without too much of a gap between them. 

Spiral Flowers

Another fabulous idea Ann shares in her book is creating a Quilting Ideas notebook or scrapbook, which I had coincidentally just started to do on my own prior to reading her tutorial.  I had been collecting quilting ideas on my Pinterest board for awhile, and then one day I printed them all out and stuck them in a three-ring binder next to my sewing room so I could remember them and have a visual reminder when I attempted to recreate those patterns on my own.  Now, in addition to those Pinterest photos, I also have the monthly FMQ Challenge Tutorials filed in my binder, both photos and hilighted text, as well as the handouts I received at the quilting class I took at my local quilt shop and some ideas torn from magazines. 

You know what the hardest part of this whole FMQ challenge is for me?  It's choosing the fabric for the practice sandwich.  I stand there, sadly contemplating all the lovely fabrics in my stash, and I feel like I'm selecting a victim for ritual sacrifice.  I am trying to use solid fabrics for these practice exercises so I can see what I'm doing and concentrate on the quilting without being distracted by a print, but I don't have very many solids in my stash at all and I hate to use them up like this.  I know others are making crafty little tote bags and table runners and such from their samples, but I just want to practice for the sake of practice and then get back to my big quilt for Lars.  So what I really need to do is go out and buy a selection of solid practice fabrics and make up a big pile of fat quarter "sandwiches" with batting, backing, and solid fabric on top, all ready to go.  Maybe I'll get a half yard of each fabric so that one FQ can be a FMQ Practice Victim, and the other FQ can go into my stash.  Yes, I said it -- I need to BUY MORE FABRIC.  Now we'll find out if my husband really reads my blog, or if he just skims through and looks at the pictures...  ;-)

Back to work on Lars's quilt!

High-Tech Quilting: Editing a Digitized Quilting Motif with Artista Embroidery Software

Bernina Artista v6 Embroidery Software

Well, I finished my last mastery class today for the Bernina Artista version 6 embroidery design software.  Today's class went over the quilt design program within the embroidery software.  I don't think it's as powerful as the Electric Quilt 7 software, but the Artista quilting program would be a good "test drive" to see if I like designing quilts on the computer.

The embroidery software is really cool, and does so much more than I'll ever use it for.  We really just got an overview of the software in the mastery classes.  Bernie printed out the 586 page PDF online help manual for me, and I know I'll be marking it up with notes and referring to it often.  The most immediate benefit I got out of taking these embroidery software classes right now was that I figured out how to delete half of a professionally digitized quilt motif so I can use it on the half blocks at the edges of Lars's Drunken Dragons quilt.

The design I selected for the center of the circles on this quilt is from from retired OESD Collection 788, Quilting Inspirations by Keryn Emmerson, and I've enlarged it to completely fill the width of my largest embroidery hoop.  Then I edited the design, deleting everything on the right half, one node at a time:

Deleting the unwanted portion of the design in my Artista software, one node at a time

This is what I ended up with:

Ta Da!  Half Design Completed

As you can see, the design has a heavy vertical line at what is now the right edge.  That's because the design consisted of closed objects that wanted to remain closed objects.  I went in and deleted lots of individual stitches, so now that heavy line is more like long jump stitches that I'll be able to trim as I go.  If everything is positioned correctly, the quilt binding should line right up at the edge of this design.

Sample Stitched in Invisible Nylon Monofilament

I saved the designs to a USB stick, plugged it into my sewing machine, and stitched out both versions, the full circle and the half circle.  (I used the ugliest fabric in my stash, John Deere Tractors from Lars's preschool tractor phase).  Both versions stitched out beautifully with the needle tension reduced to 1.5 for the monofilament nylon thread in the needle.  Here's the thing, though -- it was so disappointing to have the design stitch perfectly on my sample, and only be able to SEE it on the BACK! 

Same Sample, Back Side Showing 60 wt Cotton Bobbin Thread

I'm now considering using one of my pretty variegated quilting threads in the needle for the quilting inside the circles, staying with the 60 weight cotton Mettler embroidery thread in the bobbin that I've been using all along.  I'll have to stitch some more samples and play around with that before I start stitching this design on the quilt, one circle at a time.  The variegated threads come in 40 weight, which is a lot heavier than the 60 weight thread in my bobbin.  I could just use a pretty blue or orange solid thread in the needle instead, to reduce potential tension issues.  Since this portion of the quilting process is going to be completely computerized, there shouldn't be any "oopses" that need to be hidden with invisible thread.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

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! 

A BRIEF Update on the Drunken Dragons Quilt

Channel Quilting with Walking Foot, Monofilament Nylon Thread

Now that I've finished quilting "in the ditch," I'm adding additional straight lines of quilting vertically through out the Drunken Dragons quilt, using the width of my walking foot as a spacing guide.  I'm quilting two straight lines to the left of each seam and two straight lines to the right, removing safety pins as I come to them.  As you can see, now that I'm not in the ditch anymore the quilting isn't TOTALLY invisible, so now it feels more worthwhile -- but it's still boring.  I'll be glad when I have all of the straight vertical lines in the quilt so I can turn it and start on the horizontal lines.  With the quilt all rolled up and folded, you can't really see the progress you're making.    By the way, I'm quilting all of the straight lines first because the fancy designs and curved quilting lines will tend to pull in and distort the quilt, and it would be next to impossible to quilt straight lines afterwards. 

And -- can you believe it? -- that's ALL I have to say about that right now.  They say that brevity is the soul of wit, and I'm trying SO hard to get my wits about me, for a change...

Have a great day!

Taking the Terror Out of Invisible Nylon Monofilament Thread: Best Practices Borrowed from the Experts



Set up and Ready for Machine Quilting

Welcome to my sewing studio, bloggy friends!  No, I haven't started quilting yet, but I did spend some time in the studio yesterday, clearing the mountains of fabric, rulers, sewing magazines, tools, and mending off this folding table so I could move it in front of my sewing cabinet.  I would have moved the table even closer to my chair, except the back end of the table is already hitting my mammoth cutting table and that's way too heavy for me to move.  I already had another folding table set up behind my red sewing machine cabinet (which is a Bernie-Built exclusive, in case you're wondering), so now the weight of the quilt will be supported on all sides while I'm quilting.  It's really important that the quilt isn't hanging onto the floor, so you don't have to fight the force of gravity while you're trying to quilt.  My sewing machine is lowered so it's flush with the top of the cabinet, with a clear acrylic piece filling the gap between the machine and the table top.  I ordered the acrylic insert from one of the major sewing machine cabinet manufacturers, made to fit my machine make and model, and then I had Bernie cut the hole in the cabinet top to fit the acrylic insert.

Nylon Monofilament Thread on Thread Stand

I wanted to share some tips for working with nylon monofilament "invisible" thread, since so many people seem to struggle with it.  Because I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others whenever possible, I did a little research into the best practices others have come up with for working with this thread.  Most of what I'm about to tell you came out of either Harriet Hargrave's Heirloom Machine Quilting book or out of Diane Gaudynski's Guide to Machine Quilting.  I strongly recommend both books.

I'm using a high quality invisible thread from SewArt International, which is always the first step towards success.  Cheap thread is never worth the grief it causes, and neither is old, brittle thread.  Second, I've put the invisible nylon thread on a silly thread stand contraption that hooks onto the back of my sewing machine, the Multiple Spool Holder accessory.  The thread stand is silly only because it holds a ridiculous number of thread spools, and the sewing machine only has one needle -- at most, you might use three spools at once with a triple wing needle.  It's supposed to facilitate machine embroidery work, and I bought it thinking that I would line up different color threads in order of stitching for embroidery designs, but in reality, I rarely ever embroider designs with enough color changes to warrant the stand.  So the Multiple Spool Holder is overkill for quilting, but I'm using it so the nylon monofilament thread can sit vertically on the stand and, although it comes off the spool kind of curled and kinky, the thread has plenty of opportunity to relax and learn some manners as it travel up to the loop at the top of the thread stand, then back down to the machine and its tension disks, preventing the snarling and kinking problems that can sometimes happen with this thread. 

Photo Courtesy Clotilde

If you don't have a funky thread stand like mine, you can get a simple cast iron cone thread stand online here from Clotilde for less than $10, and just set it on the table next to your sewing machine; it will work just as well.

Invisible Nylon Thread in the Guide Attached to my Sewing Machine

Next, one of my books recommended taping a little safety pin to the edge of the sewing machine as an additional thread guide for monofilament nylon thread.  Lo and behold, my Bernina Artista 200E/730E sewing machine already has a little metal guide loop already attached in exactly the right spot!  Never noticed that before!  I love it when my sewbaby is one step ahead of me!  So my invisible thread is going straight up off the spool to the top of my thread stand, down to the little metal loop guide on the right side of my sewing machine, just above the hand wheel, and from there it follows the regular thread path.  My horizontal spool pin is holding the Mettler 60 weight 2-ply cotton embroidery thread that I'm using in my bobbin.  Remember, if your machine doesn't have this extra thread guide, just tape a small safety pin in the same spot on your machine and use that as your thread guide. 

As I'm editing photos for this post, trying to adjust the brightness so you can actually SEE the invisible thread, I feel like one of the bogus tailors in The Emperor's New Clothes.  It's the most beautiful thread in the world, but alas, fools cannot see it...  ;-)  Don't feel too bad -- I can't see it, either.

Okay, now for the tension samples!  Did you think you could thread your machine up with magical invisible nylon thread and sew beautiful stitches without having to make any tension adjustments?  Think again, sister!  Invisible nylon thread stretches as it goes through the tension disks of your machine, so you are going to need looser needle tension than the standard setting, which is calibrated for sewing with regular weight cotton or polyester construction thread in both the needle and the bobbin.  I can't tell you exactly what setting you should use, because the tension numbers are completely arbitrary and vary widely by machine, even within the same brand.  The only universal tension truths are that higher numbers equal tighter tension, and nylon thread is going to need looser tension than whatever your standard setting is.

Monofilament Tension Sample, Top Row is Normal Tension, Gradually Reduced to Bottom Row at 1.25

When I used the invisible nylon thread a few weeks ago to blind applique the Scrabble quilt label to the backing fabric, I just dropped my needle tension down to 3.0 and that seemed fine.  So I thought 3 was my magic monofilament number, until I started stitching parallel test rows down a sandwich of backing fabric and batting scraps.  The bobbin thread on the back of this sample is very easy to see and looks great at every setting.  It's really tough to tell what you're looking at on the invisible nylon side, though.  I couldn't get this to photograph well, either, but I finally determined that I needed to reduce my needle tension all the way down to 1.25 with this thread.  With higher/tighter tension, the nylon monofilament was laying in a flat line across the top of the fabric, pulling the bobbin thread all the way to the top to lock and form the stitch, instead of meeting the bobbin thread halfway in the middle.  When my needle tension is too tight, the invisible nylon looks really shiny because it's a straight, unbroken line of thread reflecting the light.  When I reduced the tension sufficiently, the shiny effect was greatly reduced because the nylon thread was bending between each stitch and disappearing into the quilt sandwich instead of laying tautly across the top of the fabric.  Does that make sense?  If your monofilament thread looks too "shiny," which is a common complaint from those who don't want to use it, I suggest you lower your needle tension until you can tame the shine.  You can keep reducing needle tension as long as the bobbin thread still looks good on the back.  If you start to have a "line" of bobbin thread on the back instead of individual stitches, you'll know you've gone too far.

Another point about the bobbin thread: Looking back at my sample stitches again, I can see a tiny dot of bobbin thread between each stitch on the top of my quilt sandwich.  This effect was more pronounced when my needle tension was too tight and pulling the bobbin up to the top, but it doesn't completely go away even once my tension is balanced.  I'm using a #60 sharp needle to make the smallest hole possible, and that should help, but it's a good reason to select a bobbin thread color that will blend with fabrics in your quilt top instead of a thread color that only looks good with the backing.

I also happily discovered that my sewing machine has a built in quilting straight stitch programmed with 5 tiny little stitches at the beginning and end to lock off stitches.  I don't think I've used that in the past, I've just manually turned the stitch length adjuster at the beginning and end of each line of stitching.  I'm not sure if I'll use the built in stitch or not -- it's nice at the beginning of the row, because you just tap the "pattern begin" button on the touch screen and start sewing, and the machine automatically increases to the correct stitch length after locking in the stitches without having to take your hands off the fabric.  The annoying part is at the end, when my foot is on the pedal and I reach up to hit the "pattern end" button to tell the machine to go back to the tiny stitches to end the row.  If I don't tap the button just right with my fingertip, the machine keeps sewing the longer stitch length while I tap it again and again, waiting for the chime that means "yes, Master" in Sewbaby Speak.  We'll see how that goes.

So much for the "quick blog post" I planned to write this morning!  Hopefully next time I post, I will have made some progress with the actual quilting. 

UPDATED February 18th, 2014: I did some quilting with monofilament nylon on my Bernina 750 QE for the first time a couple of days ago.  She handled it beautifully, with cotton thread in the bobbin and top tension reduced to 2.0.  I did place the monofilament nylon on my thread stand behind the machine and did everything else the same way I did on my previous Artista 200/730 E.

PSST!!  I'd Love to Quilt for YOU!

By the way, if you or any of your quilty friends has a quilt top or two that needs quilting, I'd be delighted to quilt for you!  My turnaround for edge-to-edge quilting is currently running about 2 weeks, and you can click here to find out how to book your quilt with me.