This week I finally stopped moaning and groaning about the unquilted quilt tops. Can you believe they just were not responding, not basting and quilting themselves? I gave in, basted my blue Kyoto Gardens and started quilting.
Let’s not count up how many hours I’ve spent so far. I have quilted in the ditch along the long border seams (but not the designs I’ll be adding in the borders) and some straight lines in the ditch in the sashing. I still have to stitch in the ditch along the inside white parts of the sashing. This was all done with my trusty walking foot.
At about 10:30 pm I decided I needed a bit of encouragement to keep going. Stitch in the ditch is pretty well hidden and I wanted to see some designs so I switched to the free-motion foot to work on a block.
This is when my freemotion presser foot and I reached an agreement. It is happy to assist me with curved lines. It will stretch to accommodate stitching in the ditch in matching thread, where wobbles are camouflaged. It will, however, refer me to its friend (and mine) the walking foot when I insist on wanting straight even quilting lines that line up at a very particular spot. This of course means that I agree to wrestle the quilt into position to get it oriented just so for the walking foot. Wavy wobbly lines with uneven stitches would just show up too much in these white spaces with this design so I’ll do it.
I suppose I could just have decided to quilt this differently, without the need for well-behaved, even lines but I’m not sure that would have helped much anyway. I don’t have a large surface level with the machine, I don’t have the budget to buy a cabinet, and I don’t have storage to store a large makeshift extension between uses. That means that a large quilt gets easily snagged on the corners of my short extension table, which causes jags and uneven stitches as the quilt gets caught or uncaught. I think I grind my teeth less maneuvering the quilt under the walking foot than dealing with the random but frequent aggravations of the snags. Until and unless I get set up better, I’ll save the freemotion for smaller projects or borders.
So for now, Freemotion, Walking and I are all agreed on who does what and the quilt will finally get done.
And now you know why I only do straight line quilting, LOL! (And I don't have a walking foot.) Pretty quilt, by the way. Love two color quilts.
ReplyDeleteLiri
I think your quilting looks great! I love how the straight lines extend the points of the star. I fully understand your struggles; I'm suffering through similar problems with my stack/whack. I too will finally finish --- if life would just stop getting in the way! ---"Love"
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a reasonable agreement! I love the quilt, it will be beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThe quilt will surely be a stunner! Your shades of blue and white are gorgeous. Quilting definitely has it's challenges and straight line isn't too easy either.
ReplyDeleteLove the blues and white. (I am a blue girl). I am happy that you and the feet have reached an agreement. My quilt tops have not basted and/or quilted themselves either. :(
ReplyDeleteI guess I need to get going. I am not sure I can make peace with my FMQ foot. LOL
Things are looking great. Just keep plugging along. Sometimes your ironing board set down real low...even with your sewing machine table works. I place my large cutting board on it to let everything slide better. That way the quilt won't snag on the ends of the board.
ReplyDeleteSuch a funny post! I hear you sister - I have a similar situation hence my machine and I have decided that it's best for all concerned if quilt tops go to the nice lady with two long arms in her converted garage.
ReplyDeleteSimple straight lines and small projects we can manage together. Anything else is more than we can handle and still remain on speaking terms.
Can't wait to see the full quilt - from the teaser it's going to be a cracker!
What you've done looks fantastic! But I understand exactly about things getting caught on corners...even sewing the long seams to get a quilt together is difficult on a little table. Perhaps you could employ your kids as quilt holders?
ReplyDelete