I hand basted it and proceeded to hand quilt it, which I used to be very good at. The background fabric is a white on white, which is basically paint on white and very difficult to hand quilt through. I only quilted four blocks. Then I had elbow surgery and could no longer hand quilt without a lot of pain. Maybe that's what put my elbow over the edge in the first place.
Sooooooo, it has been folded up on the top shelf of my studio closet. I couldn't send it out to be machine quilted because I had already basted it and had done some hand quilting. I didn't want to spend a fortune having someone finish the hand quilting.
Last Friday one of the members of my weekly group, FiberWorks, showed a large quilt top that she had pieced several years ago and now was going to finish and quilt on her Sweet Sixteen. A light bulb went off in my head. Why had I never thought of that? I have a Sweet Sixteen that I have used very little. It's like the little girl with a curl right in the middle of her forehead.....when she was good she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid. I have so much trouble with the machine with getting the tension right and not having the thread break. After a LOT of fiddling and watching videos, I finally got it going. It did not get tangled up in the hand basting, as I had feared and it looked pretty good.
I quilted and quilted and quilted.....on and off for most of the week. Hooray!! I have finished the inner part of the quilt, the inner border and have started on the middle border. It is far from perfect and it will never go in a show, but I think it will look pretty on my bed with a little redecorating to have it fit in.
I have an extension table to the right of the machine and brought in another four foot folding table for the left to support all the weight of the quilt. Works perfectly. The great part of the Sweet Sixteen is having all that room in the harp. No need to roll up the quilt and throw it over your shoulder as you would with a regular home sewing machine. I just smooth out one block at a time and quilt.
As I said before, I had marked the quilting design with a #2 pencil, a little too dark and it shows, especially if I have strayed off the line. I am going to try to remove it with a formula I found.....3/4 cup of rubbing alcohol, a few drops of dishwashing detergent and 1/4 cup of water. If anyone knows of a better solution, please let me know.
How about you? Have you resurrected a UFO recently?
I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Please go see what some talented artists are up to.
7 comments:
I remember that pattern! My mom made it but she just did a smaller version. There is something about quilted white on white that I love. It will look fantastic on your bed.
Finished is better than perfect! I'm in a Sweet 16 group on Facebook and it seems that a lot of people have so much trouble with tension on these machines. Glad you stuck it out, it looks great!
I think that it looks great. Congratulations on moving forward, you must be on a high for even trying this and having it work.
That is an absolutely lovely quilt, Norma, and your quilting is wonderful! I love my Sweet Sixteen, too!
Good for you, Norma, for getting back to this quilt. You had too much time invested on it to abandon it. I think the secret of the Sweet 16 machine is to quilt more on it. When I let much time go by without using it, it's a challenge to get back to a good, smooth stitch. But my daughter has learned to quilt and is enjoying free motion quilting on it, so yeaaaa, this keeps the Sweet 16 happy.
I like those marching lillies! And your sweet sixteen. I want one
Norma, I really like this quilt. Very, very nice.
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