WIP Wednesday: Quilting Triangles!

Last Christmas, I bought myself a present.  I joined a weekly sewing group and wanted a smaller machine that I could carry.  My normal machine is a Husqvarna Viking and it weighs a ton.  I had a disk problem in my back a few years back and I am very wary of carrying heavy sewing machines!  So I settled on this little Pfaff Passport 2.0.

I love this for piecing and when I used it during a free motion quilting class at the Limerick Quilt Centre,  Mary Palmer was impressed with the tension on it.  My Husqvarna always requires a tension adjustment for FMQ and piecing but it does have a huge harp space (between needle and body of machine).  Little Pfaff not so much, but I thought I'd use it for my triangle quilt.

I discovered that when piecing triangles you lose a lot of width when the seam allowance is sewn in.  Not so much on height but it meant my triangle quilt was a bit smaller than I thought it would be.  Suits me being 5ft zero but probably not most people!

Small quilt, small machine, I decided to try and give it a go.  Plus the Pfaff has a built in walking foot (Pfaff call it IDT).  I love this feature.  You just pull down a black plastic arm at the back and even feeding of the fabric from top to bottom happens automatically!

When I first looked at quilting this, I thought straight line quilting beside the seams was a bit too obvious and then as it's been hanging along so long, I thought obvious is a perfectly fine strategy to pursue, so straight line it was.  I broke my 1/4" piecing foot accidentally (had moved the needle for a zipper foot and forgot to move it back!) so I used the standard foot instead and it gives a line about 3/8" away from the seam.

I turned on the new season of Scott & Bailey to watch (UK detective series) and straight lined away.  I know some people enjoy this bit and zone out.  I have to confess I find it a little bit boring though I really like the look.

Even straight line quilting I found it easier to move the quilt with quilting gloves.  I use Machingers size small.  They give you a guide on the back of the packet to place your hand to see what size you are.  My friend Louise was advised to go a size smaller again as they stretch after a while using them and I can attest to that.  I kept having to pull them up, so on the list to buy at the Knitting & Stitching show are XS gloves!

Things were going great across the long diagonals mirroring the triangles and I was tempted to stop there after two lines crossing over.  This would have left me 9" at the widest space between the quilt lines and my batting is good for up to 10" apart.  As this is probably going to be washed a lot, I went for the last line echoing the horizontal lines across the quilt.  At this point I got a few puckers - maybe three lines crossing over was a bit too many to chance my luck?

It only happened in the yellow fabrics which are from the Minimalista range.  They feel smoother to the touch than the other fabrics and I didn't pre-wash as these triangles were from fat eights that I had starched.  The Florence fabrics I used, despite not having perfect points everywhere, glided over smoothly.  I'm happy enough with the result and figure in the wash they might disappear!

I originally thought I'd use black for my binding but when I placed it next to the quilt it looked too harsh.  I'm thinking a darkish grey would work better.  This grey seems a little too blue so it looks like I need to make a trip to the quilt shop and see what I can get to finally finish this little quilt. 

You may have noticed I didn't do a round up of Quarter 3 FAL goals.  Well, that's because I didn't finish any!  I did come close with 2 projects but fell shy of the finish line.  So this post is in Work In progress Wednesday rather than Finish it Friday!  Oh well, there's always this quarter!

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