Should've Gone To Bed: When 20 Minutes of Careless Stitching Yields an Hour and a Half of Ripping

Greetings, Friends!  Today's tale of woe has a happy ending and is chock full of Monday Morning Quarterbacking and useful tips for Future Rebecca.  Let's start with the Happy Ending, shall we?  I finished stitching this row of alternate blocks in my Deco quilt today, so I'm nearly 2/3 finished (with the stitch in the ditch and major digital designs in this 102" x 102" bed quilt that I am custom quilting).  Tomorrow I'll pop off the computer robotics belts from my machine, snap on my ruler base, and work on the stitch in the ditch quilting around the pale purply-pink squares and the green squares in the adjacent blocks.  Doesn't that Teal So Fine thread look pretty against the dark Kona Indigo background fabric?  That is the kind of quilting that says "Notice ME!  And pay no attention to the wobbly imperfections of the stitching in the ditching!"

This Is the Row of Decorative Computerized Quilting I Completed Today

Here's what I was looking at late last Thursday afternoon, when I was tired and wanted to stop quilting for the day but pushed myself to finish out the row:

I Quilted the Wrong Design!  😱

If I'm Holding a Seam Ripper, Now is NOT a Good Time!!!

First, the good news: All of the SID (Stitch in the Ditch) quilting with invisible monofilament thread has been completed on my Spirit Song quilt.  That was my main objective in last week's Tuesday To-Do List post.

It feels good to get to the end of the quilt!

...But then, of course, I had to roll right back to the beginning of the quilt because there is more quilting still to be done with threads that we can see!

Back to the Beginning for the Next Phase of Quilting

The best part about doing it this way is that I've gotten so much of the yucky stuff out of the way.  Now the quilt top is completely basted to the batting and backing around the perimeter, and the edges are locked down nice and straight and square from top to bottom.  For the rest of the quilting process, when I advance my quilt, I won't have to spend time lining up seams, checking for straightness, or basting the edges -- I can just roll the quilt forwards and start right in quilting.  I also have nothing hanging over the front edge of the frame anymore, since all three layers haver rolled up together onto my backing roller now.  

Back to the Top of the Quilt After All the SID Has Been Quilted

I kept this top pretty straight and square throughout the SID work, but I did get lazy at the very end and did not check EVERY horizontal seamline with my channel lock, resulting in a slight "smile" to the bottom edge of the quilt once I finally reached it.  Yikes!  Fortunately, it was slight enough that I was able to straighten out the bottom edge of the quilt and then quilt out the resulting fullness in the row of blocks just above the border.

Can You See Those Ripples in the Last Row of Blocks?

They look SO much better after the SID along the seam lines distributed and trapped the excess fullness where I needed it to go:

Much Improved After SID Quilting!

Here's what my quilt looks like right now, if you climb underneath the long arm frame and look up from below.  Kind of like a stained glass window:

View From the Carpeting

SO...  I switched from the 3.5 needle I'd been using for monofilament nylon to a regular 4.0 needle, rethreaded my needle with a yummy shade of variegated YLI 40 weight Machine Quilting Thread with a coordinating shade of So Fine bobbin thread, did some test stitching and tension adjustments to get a nice stitch, and then started quilting my quilt for about 5 minutes.

And I did NOT like it.  Hello, Mister Seam Ripper -- we have to stop meeting like this!!!

5 Minutes to Stitch Equals 45 Minutes to UNStitch

This was not a stitch quality issue or not liking the thread.  I just didn't like the thread for what I wanted to do with it.  I love the heavier 40 weight variegated threads for an edge-to-edge pantograph without backtracking, or for an allover meander or something like that.  I like the heavier thread when the quilting is less dense, with lines of quilting stitches spaced farther apart.  When I started quilting lines that were a quarter of an inch apart, this 40 weight thread just looked like a heavy, clunky rope to me.  

YLI Machine Quilting Cotton, 40 wt, Color V74 Paris Boutique

Also, even though my spool of YLI Machine Quilting Cotton (color V74 Paris Boutique) looks like a pale pastel on the spool, there are some rather dark pink sections and I didn't like how those looked when the quilting line ran across a white background fabric.  Such a shame because I really love that thread -- it's just not giving me the effect I had in mind for this particular project.  

Plan B: So Fine 60 wt, Color Peach Tart

I think I want to quilt the whole thing with So Fine 50 Weight thread in Peach Tart color.  This thread matches one of the lighter shades in the variegated YLI spool, and is a little lighter weight so the quilting stitches won't be quite as prominent.  My quilt top is really busy with all of these different fabric prints, after all, and I felt like the heavier "look at me" thread was fighting with the fabrics and piecing design rather than complementing them, especially where I had a high contrast between the darkest thread color and the lightest fabric color.  So I had to carefully unpick those stitches without ripping any holes in my quilt.

Tools of the Trade: Hemostat Forceps, Seam Ripper, and Curved Thread Snips

In addition to my seam ripper, I also use a hemostat locking forceps to grab onto small bits of thread and pull them out of the quilt, and a curved thread snipper to clip longer lengths of pulled-out stitches.  Since it's time consuming, close work, I am so glad I have my saddle stool so I can be seated high on my perch and lean over the quilt comfortably to reach what I'm ripping out.

Saddle Stool and IKEA Tool Cart

I've also got my little IKEA tool cart handy with other supplies and gadgets just an arm's reach away.  This cart is also a great place to put a glass of wine, you know, to put you in the right frame of mind for ripping out all of the stitching you did today.  Patience comes in a bottle labeled "CHIANTI CLASSICO RISERVA," but it's best to keep the red wine as far away from the quilt as you can, so long as you can still reach it!

Savor Your Seam Ripping!

I actually had one of my sisters on FaceTime while I was ripping out stitches.  I balanced my iPhone on the right handle of the long arm machine, with the back of the phone touching the takeup lever thingy so it didn't fall off.  Seam ripping is definitely an activity that goes faster when you have your mind engaged elsewhere!

So anyway, when I turned out the lights and left my studio for the day, I was right back where I left things the night before.  I'm threaded up with a peach pastel So Fine 50 weight in the needle and paired it with a peach 60 weight Bottom Line thread in the bobbin, and we'll have to see how that goes tomorrow!

My only To-Do this Tuesday is to finish quilting this quilt, somehow or another, and get it off my frame.  Wish me luck!

I'm linking up today's post with:

MONDAY

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       BOMs Away Katie Mae Quilts  

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

·       To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us