More Quilting!

So I made a start!  I can't say everything was foolproof and I had a few hiccups along the way but I spent a good bit of Saturday evening  and most of yesterday quilting.

I started by stitching in the ditch, thinking if I broke this up into sections, it would be easier.

My new mini Pfaff came with a quilters kit and one of the feet in it was a stitch in the ditch foot.  Sadly my Pfaff and Viking feet are not interchangeable so I tried the ditching with the smaller machine.

I was sceptical when I saw this attachment and thought with a bit of practice why would I need it? I have to say that it did make it a bit easier to stay in the ditch though not not foolproof.  Human error still creeps in from time to time!

For the free motion loopy l's I had planned I switched to the bigger machine.  Last year, as a birthday present to myself I bought an extension table.  My Husqvarna Viking is designed as a home dec. machine with an embroidery attachment but no extension table.

A bit of googling universal extension tables gave me sewingmates.com and this big 24" table.  I figured if I was going to pay for postage across the pond might as well get the bigger one!

Normally I have fabric under it, and rotary cutter , scissors etc. but I cleared the space to make room for smooshing the quilt around.  This is as tidy as the kitchen table gets!  It's fully adjustable so I hope I'll never need another one!

I started with the loopy l's in the borders crossing the squares and everything was going grand until the last row.  I broke a needle.  I did notice the quilt being a little tight to move just before the needle broke so did the usual, cleaned out the bobbin case, re-threaded and started again and broke another needle.  It was then that I realised my hopping foot was broken!  It had slid backward and the needle instead of going through it was hitting it and snapping. 

With one row to go and kind of getting into it, I didn't want to have to stop, so I thought I'd try the embroidery foot that came with the bag of embroidery accessories for the machine.  This one is solid metal but with no springs.  To be fair when the machine is in embroidering mode this thing whizzes about the hoop so I thought why not give it a go?

Well it was perfect, far better than the springed one - why have I not being using this all along?  I finished off the loops and did a bit of stippling in the centre squares.

Then it was all straight line with the baby blue aurifil thread to finish off the centre with diamonds.

I didn't quite get it finished so no link up with The Littlest Thistle for first quarter finishes.  She's nearly there though. Just the outer border to go.

All the advice from last week's post (thanks you so much!) really helped the confidence and just to try it.  One of the things mentioned was to break up the space into sections, so I did some straight line quilting (3 lines) in the outer border to give me two spaces to work with.  I'm thinking of a loopy stipple in navy thread to blend into the background.  If the brave streak continues I might try spirals!  I found this really cool blog when taking Tomomi's advice and googled free motion quilt design.  The In Box Jaunt has really lovely flower designs I'd like to do next!

I did get some puckering in the straight lines as well as one or two spots on the quilt (very annoying!) I found the longer the line of quilting the more chance of it happening even using the walking foot.  I did spray baste this quilt and worked hard to keep it smooth but with all the wrangling through the throat space, maybe next time, I'd add safety pins to the outer border too as well as the spray glue. The other thing that kept happening was the wadding kept fuzzying up the quilt top.  I gave up using the lint brush and will just have to wait until it is trimmed and bound to de fuzz it!

Still, the nerves are gone, I was very tense doing the the loopy l's but relaxed a bit on the stippling!  I''ll be away with work for most of the week so this will be waiting for me and now that I'm almost finished I don't want to do anything else!  First time that's happened in a while!

Linking up to Design wall Monday and