Birds in the Forest

August is my month for the Sew Scrappy Sew Happy group quilting bee. My theme was "Birds in the Forest" and I asked participants to make 12 inch liberated log cabin blocks featuring my bird fabric from Ikea.  It is so fun to get my fabrics back, with some new fabrics mixed in. I love free pieced quilts! I wish I had given some specific instructions about not putting skinny skinny strips on the sides (this will be a pain when I go to sew them together), but live and learn. I like the way they are turning out. Now I am trying to decide whether to sew blocks together as is or to use setting blocks for a larger quilt. I kind of like the idea of setting blocks featuring small bits of the botanicals from the bird fabric. Hmmmm....

My thread kept breaking

I love that this machine is called a Slant-O-Matic. It could only be better if it was a Slant-O-Matic Rocketeer. Yes, that actually exists. Anyway. In case any of you are trying to befriend a sewing machine and win it over to your free motion quilting ways, I thought I would write down the changes I made that turned my thread shredding beast into a free motion kitten.

1. I rethreaded my machine. The basic reboot of the misbehaving sewing machine. Did not help. 
2. I considered lowering my top tension but alas, it was already about as low as it could go. 
3. I inspected the thread path for places the thread could be getting snagged. I did not find any, which is good because I'm not sure how I would have solved that problem anyway.
4. I made sure the weight of the thread in the top and the bottom was about the same (the bobbin thread may have been a heavier weight before). Did not help. 
5. I changed the needle plate to the straight stitch plate. This plate has a tiny hole in the plate instead of the wide slot in the standard plate. I'm going to try super duper extra hard to remember to change the needle plate back when I'm done free motion quilting so I don't end up zig zagging right into the plate someday in the future. I thought I was on to something with this change but alas, not much help. Maybe I should just change the plate back now.
6. I replaced my new 90/14 quilting needle with a new 90/14 topstitch needle which, despite being the same size needle, actually has a larger eye. Helped immensely! I went from breaking the thread every minute to quilting for over an hour straight with no breakage.

Problem solved! Which just emphasizes how important the right needle is when you are free motion quilting. It really is worth spending $5-10 on a pack or two of new needles! If the topstitch needle hadn't solved the problem I was prepared to try denim needles and stretch needles, both of which appear to have solved the thread breaking problems for some quilters. Have you ever dealt with problems with thread breakage while free motion quilting? How did you solve it?

Free motion quilting revisted

I really enjoy free motion quilting.  It is not as hard as you might think.

I've taught four people to free motion quilt so far. Three of them took it and ran with it and I love seeing their quilting, I think it's better than mine. The fourth was my grandma and she decided she would rather just let someone else quilt her quilts so she could focus on the part she likes best: piecing. Can't argue with that.

I originally learned to free motion quilt from Kathy Sandbach, who has a book about free motion quilting. It was a two-morning workshop at the Northwest Quilting Expo. Kathy does not have a long arm quilting machine so I thought she was the perfect person to teach me to quilt on my home machine.

Things get a little tight when you get into the middle of the quilt but it is doable!

This project brought me face to face with some tension problems with the Bernina. I can't explain why the thread would be in tension, then suddenly out, then back in again. I had to rip out more stitches than I would have liked.  Do you see that below? Maddening.

I would simply assume that it needs servicing, but it was just serviced less than two years ago and I've only quilted two and a half quilts since then. If I have to spend $90 servicing this machine every two quilts that is going to make me bonkers.

Makes me fantasize about a new quilting machine.

Anyway, I feel very passionately about free motion quilting. I'm good at it, and I've had good luck teaching it to others. I decided while quilting this quilt that I would like to teach a free motion class in the future. So that's a personal goal I set for myself to make happen in the next two years. Having said that, please ponder why this octopus is wearing eyeglasses. Ah....they can't all be winners.

Free motion quilting

Several weeks ago I spent an evening sewing at Modern Domestic with the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. I did some "doodle quilting" where I insert little drawings in the middle of the stippling. It seems so much more personal than plain all over stippling.

The little bettle is my favorite. I chose the subjects to coordinate with the colors of the borders. There is also a blue and purple border but I couldn't get any good pictures of anything I'd quilted on those.

It's funny that this has been done for weeks but I'm only now posting about it. It is so hard for me to make that step of picture to computer in order to do the blogging. Expect a huge increase in my posts when a good blogger application is developed for the iPhone!