Avoiding my Machine

The singer has been avoiding the Singer for several days now.  I was halfway through my big baby quilt when I just walked away!  More problems with skipped stitches left me blue, so I thought my machine and I needed a little time apart.

My wonderful neighbor has loaned me her Brother machine, which is sitting in its box in our hallway right now.  I read through the manual, but haven't opened it up yet.  Still debating about whether to give my baby a second third forth fifth chance.

In the meantime, I am working on my next project- a Supernova Quilt using Lee's Quilt-a-long at Freshly Pieced.  She's put together an easy to follow tutorial, and lots of finished quilts are linked up for inspiration!  I chose a color palette of yellow, green (I especially love the top fabric from Robert Kaufman's Imperial Collection 7, called Starburst Linen)

...blue and violet-ish

This is my first quilt-a-long, though I'm not really quilting along, since they finished last April. It's one of Lee's original designs, and it's a really fresh and modern layout.  I have finished picking fabrics and cutting 3 of the 9 blocks, which seems to be the most complicated part.  My soon-to-be quilt doesn't yet have a target owner...we may keep it as a cozy lap quilt for the couch or we may gift is to a special couple- it just depends on how generous we feel when completed!

Picking up where I left off.

Finished the patched top for my Christmas quilt.  Just waiting for my border fabric to arrive in the mail.  I buy all of my fabrics online, since the lqs is about an hour away by train.   Decided to pick up my sister's baby quilt and continue patching together the whirleygigs.  I have all the squares done, the next step is to trim them to 6.5 x 6.5 inch squares.  Actually, I lied...the next step is to iron that last seam on all 40-odd squares, and I am not in an ironing mood...ugh.

To give you an update on the repairs made to my Singer 301a, all is going very smoothly since I replaced the tension spring.  Stitching is just eaiser now that I have taken the free motion quilting foot off and replaced it with my regular foot.  I love to fmq, but that big bed quilt for my mother in law almost did me in!  So much fabric to deal with, it was a real pain in the butt!  I dont want to quit on fmq'ing, but maybe just take a short vacation from it and do some straight-line quilting for my next couple of projects.

Not that I get into the whole Schadenfreude thing, but I did enjoy reading about someone elses fmq blues at Summerfield Quilts.  Angie is an experienced quilter, and to see that even the experts get frustrated sometimes was encouraging to me.  Angie solved her problems by replacing the cheap batting she was using with warm and natural.  That's what I always use, so her solution won't help me, but knowing that I'm not alone will.

Back in the Saddle Again!

My machine had been skipping stitches, making for a couple of really not attractive quilted blocks and an extremely bummed-out quilter.  After uttering a couple of words I won't repeat, I put down my work and sat down at the old computer to plumb the depths of your experience and knowledge to solve my mechanical issue.

I did two things which seemed to do the trick:

1) Changed back to my old needle.  For some weird, unexplainable reason, a second Schmetz quilting needle from the same box just wasn't behaving itself, so I went back to the first needle I had been using for the last week or so.  Fortunately I didn't throw it away!

2) Slowed down the hands.  My wife was being a bit of a "back seat quilter", and told me I needed to make bigger loops.  When I started making bigger loops, I think I may have sped up the delivery of the quilt, and this might have contributed to skipped stitches as well.  Back to smaller loops and more controlled, slower stitching.

All of those stops, starts, and thread breaks were not pretty, and contributed to some significant tension on my part, which makes my fun hobby a literal pain in the neck.  Last night I was back to happily quilting away, and finished another 5 blocks.  Only 10 blocks left, and at this rate, I should be quilted and bound by Friday!  Yay!  Already chomping at the bit to continue another WIP for my sister.

Many thanks to my readers (and Rosanne in particular) for helping me get out of my FMQ Blues!

I've got those FMQ blues...

It seems my machine is now "skipping stitches".  I'm not sure how to describe it.  The top thread doesn't break, but the needle makes holes in the fabric as I sew, and the top thread doesn't hook up with the bottom.  I'll be going along fine, then look back at my work to see that there are holes in the fabric, but no thread.  Then it goes back to sewing properly.  Perhaps a picture could clarify:

As you can probably see, to the left of my finger is a lopsided loop which I had sewn "loopy" and the straight part of the loop is one long stitch.  You can also see the loop directly below  my finger in the photo that the stitch length is really long (same goes for the loop below that one, also in the brown fabric strip).  Finally, in the lower right corner, on the orange fabric, you can see where a quilted loop stops and starts- this is because I just ripped out the thread with my seam ripper.  This isn't a matter of moving the quilt too fast, I have a new needle in, I only broke my thread once, and it only started happening today, after stitching my first 6 blocks a few days ago with no problems.  I would LOVE any feedback or suggestions if any of my readers can figure out what might be wrong.  Also, it's 100% cotton thread from Connecting Threads, if that's info that would be helpful.

Please help- I am in a very sour mood because this issue has surfaced as I am quilting the lightest block on my quilt with brown thread...booo!

Back to work (x2)

Well, I finally got my machine back on Wednesday, and it's sewing like a dream again!  I say "finally", but it was only three days- it seems like more when you are anxious to finish a project, I guess.

Anyhow, I am back to work on my sister's baby quilt (whirleygig) and finished the top on my mother-in-law quilt.  I am now "auditioning" quilt patterns for the MIL quilt.  As I am so new to the quilting world (and therefore to machine quilting), I am a little paranoid about doing it myself.- especially on a relatively large quilt (twin bed).  After purchasing a darning foot for my machine, it is tempting to dive right in to free-hand, but I might just go the safe route and stitch in the ditch.  Perhaps after some practice with the darning foot this weekend all will become clear.

Why "Back to Work x 2"?  Because like many working opera singers in New York City, I have a second job.  Temporary office jobs (or "temping") are a necessary evil that help us bridge the gap between what our fledgling careers pay and what we need to survive in the Big Apple.  Fortunately, I only need to temp a few weeks a year, and although I call it an evil, it's actually a very interesting diversion, which reminds me that I am so lucky to do what I love.  After a week at a desk, I realize how spoiled I am to spend most every day with my daughter!

Out of Commission!

Started on baby quilt for my sister's new bundle, due to arrive December 23rd (bummer for her- I always felt sorry for people who have Christmas time birthdays).  She is expecting a girl, and I am using a hodge-podge of pinks, purples, and light greens to make a crib sized whirleygig quilt using Linda's tutorial from her blog a maiden hair fern.  She has some beautiful quilts over there, so maybe go have a look-see!  I have been wanting to make a Whirleygig for a while now, and I thought it would be a fun pattern for a baby quilt.  Excited to finally get started on my first baby quilt!

Sadly, about halfway through my first batch of chain piecing on the old Singer 301a, I started having lower bobbin problems, then the Singer stopped singing and started to GRIND!  Opened her up and see some gears on top just aren't lining up properly.  Guess I'm headed to my local repair shop to get charged $100 for an adjustment...Ugh!  Hopefully it won't slow me down (or cost me) too much!

When am I finished?

It has been a busy week with lots of unquilt goings-on.  Much of it good (like getting a new singing job for the winter), and even a couple of really good things:
1) I finished putting together the top of my mother-in-law quilt (for lack of a better name)
2) My wife became a citizen of the U.S.!

My quilt, which is a twin sized log cabin in fall colors (14 inch blocks), still needs a border, but it feels done when I finish sewing all the blocks together.  The border will be a simple brown 4 inch strip, and that fabric has not arrived yet, so I have a day or so to kick myself for not lining up all my corners perfectly...

I am still trying to get a feel for where I will fall in that spectrum between sloppy and perfect.  How much imperfection am I comfortable with (obviously a lot if I'm ending my sentences with prepositions, right)?  On the final line of stitching in the blocks (two big blocks of 12 log cabins) I was about a quarter inch off, and so I pulled out the stitching and did it again.  Wouldn't you know it?  Somehow they still didn't quite line up.

After pulling stitches once, I just figured it was close enough...especially after I had pinned it and thought it lined up just right.  Is this a feed dog issue?  I know they all lined up when I pinned them and again the second time when I didn't pin.  Oh well, I am not sure how many times you can restitch before the fabric starts to get damaged, so I felt like I had better stop.

In other news, I went with my wife, daughter, and a friend of ours to the Manhattan Court House and sat around for a good hour waiting for the swearing in of 170 new U.S. citizens from 50 different countries this morning.  It was much less ceremonial and inspiring than expected.  I expected teary-eyed folks with their hands over their hearts and lots of oak paneling and a big American flag.  None of that- just a big modern hotel meeting room looking space with a judge reading a canned speech about the benefits of being an American.  They did swear allegiance with hand over heart...OK, maybe my experience was softened a bit because I was holding our baby thru much of it, trying to keep her from crying as the judge read his message (if you just take one step closer to the mic, we could ALL hear you).  In the end, it was an amazing experience, and I am sure that there were many tears and proudly-beaming people.  I was just a little preoccupied.

Hope my fabric arrives tomorrow...