Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Free Motion Snaffu's

I know Halloween is over but I'm still working on my Boo To You lap quilt I started last year.  It is one of my projects chosen for Finish-A-Long 2013 so I hope to get it done this year and am quite happy to spend time on it this month.  Come December I want to be in Christmas mode with Santa's and snowy things and put ghosts and dancing skeletons away. 

For this 2" border I wanted to try free motion quilting loops & stars all the way around.  I did what everyone says and practiced on a sheet of paper with a marker before going to fabric to get the pattern into my head. 
Then I practiced on a quilt sandwich before going to my quilt and just as well I did, as I got horrible results on the back!

I changed my needle, cleaned out the bobbin, re-threaded the machine, increased the tension and it helped a teeny bit but didn't get rid of it.  So I changed thread.  Things suddenly got a lot better!

So I've quilted the outside border, not in the colour I originally wanted (a beautiful dark purple) and it's not perfect but I'm happy with it how it looks front and back.  Now the plan is to hand quilt the inner corners with Perle cotton! 

And I made a note in my notebook to watch the back when doing loops!  I use this for taking notes from Craftsy and You Tube.  Every now and then I jot down a design idea.  Plus I really enjoy just flipping through it! 


I've relagated my dark thread to straight line stitching only, unless anyone has any other ideas for me to try?  I've been using a Universal 90 needle with the machine at full speed, feed dogs down.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday and I Quilt Thursdays!

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5 comments:

  1. AmandaK@whatthebobbin6 November 2013 at 17:59

    Maybe it has more to do the thread weight? Fun star quilting :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ruth6 November 2013 at 21:08

    The purple is a 40 poly cotton and the pink a 50 mercerised cotton. Wondering if I should have used a different needle maybe?

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  3. Unknown7 November 2013 at 01:56

    Love your free motion work :) I haven't been brave enough to try it yet...but I will one day!
    Stopping by via Freshly Pieced WIP Link party

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michele7 November 2013 at 20:28

    Even though I've been doing free motion for awhile, it's always a learning process for me. It seems to me that even the pros try to match their thread to their fabric most of the time. Your quilting looks great!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gemma@prettybobbins13 November 2013 at 10:02

    What a great idea to keep a sketch book with notes! The perlé quilting is going to be beautiful! Thanks for linking up :)

    ReplyDelete

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