Finished

I spent last weekend (hot, humid and/or raining) inside finishing up this second quilt for my Florida home.

It is quilted and faced and ready to hang.

I quilted this with my Sweet Sixteen, which I had not used for a few months. I loaded it up with gray thread, top and bobbin and sewed away. It was a dream. No thread breaking, no tension problems, unlike other times. I worked most of Saturday and finished all the gray. I loved having all that room to spread the quilt out. No need for rolling it up or bunching to fit under the harp of the Bernina.

Sunday after church I changed the thread to navy and whoa, baby. What's happening? Thread tangles on the back and/or front, thread breaking and general nastiness. I say that this machine is like that poem...."There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid."

It took a lot of fiddling with the tension, top and bobbin to get it working correctly. And, yes, it was exactly the same kind of thread, just a different color. What I thought would take me an hour and a half took me three hours.

But I'm finished and I'm pleased with it. I sewed on the sleeve last night and it is ready to hang,

I did corduroy quilting (narrow straight parallel lines) on the Dupioni silk sections and an angular random pattern on the rest. I loved using that new ruler. You just press your foot (the machine's not yours) against the ruler as you quilt in straight lines. It was a bit of a learning curve as it was easy to stray away from the ruler and then you got a little blip, but I got better as I went along.

This is the ruler, an unimpressive looking little fellow. It is only seven inches long and two inches wide and a quarter of an inch thick. The thickness is important, because if it is too thin it will slide under the foot, too thick and it won't fit. It is designed by Angela Waters, a super duper free motion quilter, who has a whole line of these rulers for making curves. I prefer to do my own curves free-motion, but the straight ruler is a big help if you want to do long straight lines. It was worth the $21 + S&H. The alternative is to use your walking foot on a regular machine. You will get perfectly spaced stitches and perfectly straight lines, but you have to turn the whole quilt around each time you get to the end. Not too bad on a very small quilt, but on a big one it is a nightmare and takes forever, So much easier free-motion with a ruler where you can sew frontwards and backwards or any other direction and not have to turn the quilt.

I put the red dots on the ruler because it is very easy to lose it, being clear. Ask me how I know!

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For the shibori sections I followed the patterns of the shibori.

I will be linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Go see what everyone is doing and please leave comments. We all love feedback. I know that I do.