All was
going swimmingly with my Christmas Quilt. I managed to make the quilt sandwich
without too much trauma. I had originally thought I would try to do this part
on the floor in the sitting room but at the last minute I decided against it.
This was partly because I couldn’t face crawling about the floor (won’t someone
think of the knees!) but also because I found it difficult to estimate how long
it would take and envisioned everyone wanted to get back and forth to the
kitchen making it twice as stressful.
I used the
kitchen table instead and this was the best option. Not only was I up off the
floor but the weight of the quilt hanging off the table pulled out any
wrinkles. I started with the centre of the quilt in the centre of the table and
the rest hanging over each side.
I pinned a
handwidth apart all over the quilt. Again starting from the centre and
radiating outwards. Once all the fabric on the table was pinned I pulled the
quilt until an unpinned bit was on the table and continued that way. I found
that as long as I checked for wrinkles and folds each time I moved it and it was fine. It’s probably not as taut as quilts
that are taped to large tables but it’s the best I can do with what I have.
I was
pleased with the result.
I then went
on to quilt in the ditch; horizontally and vertically through the charm square
triangles then diagonally along the sashing. I haven’t got a photo of this but
it is basic stitch in the ditch so we can use our imagination.
I then moved
on to the free motion quilting and all went very wrong. My poor sewing machine
wasn’t happy. Thread snapped. Stitches
were ugly. Needles broke. The machine clunked. I persisted for a few days and
during that time I took the machine apart twice (to fix the clunking)
re-threaded more times than I care to remember and got more and more
frustrated. Each time it went horribly wrong I did all of the above then went
back to ordinary mode with an ordinary foot and all was well. I read blogs on
FMQ. Watched excellent classes on Craftsy by the inspirational Leah Day.
Nothing made any difference.
So I went to
Tullys in Sunderland and test drove a new machine. I could FMQ fairly easily. I
now have a new machine. It’s a Bernina 350 Special Edition. The Ricky Tims one.
It is
beautiful. My trusty old Janome is still in use and wonderful for most stitches
but I think I was asking too much with the FMQ. She just wasn’t happy with it. And
now I can be 100% certain any issues I have with FMQ will be down to me and not
the machine.
I haven’t
done any more with my Christmas Quilt as I want to use Bernina on less complex
projects than FMQ until I’m more familiar with it so have moved onto one of my
other projects; perfecting zipped fabric bags.
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