Do you See What I see?

Today I worked on the final baby clothes quilt.  This is a near twin of one I made the first year I was quilting.  I accidently made nearly twice as many blocks as I needed so I called it serendipity and made another top.  This one is bigger than the original and measures 90" square.  It has a pieced back as well, which I will show you after I get the binding attached.  For now I've finished the quilting.  Praised be!  And delt with all the threads and trust me there were a lot.

This was my first BIG quilt to quilt on the mid arm frame.  I will say there is theory which I picked up as much as I could reading everything I could get my hands on.  This is real tangible data, but it has no true meaning until reality combines and the key clicks.

Keys to making the key click:

1. There are such a thing as defective needles.  It might look great but if you've changed the thread, adjusted the tension, checked your needle plate for burrs, called in some else who knows more than you, clearly rethreaded the machine a zillion times, and checked the manual...  Guess what?  It might just be that brand new needle.  This one in particular I felt the burr as soon as I removed it from the sewing machine.  Wish I'd thought of that before loosing hours and hours.

2.  When quilting on a quilt frame needle size should be two sizes bigger.  So if you've always done freemotion quilting with a side 90/14  you need an 18.  Don't try to bull you're way past that needle size.  My home machine doesn't care, but the Janome 1600P, goes so fast it cares and will shred your thread.

3.  Thread does matter.  I read somewhere that Janome 1600's likes overlock thread, you know the two strand serger thread?  I'm still trying to figure out if that's true.  But currently I have everything set perfectly for the quilt I just quilted using So Fine Thread.

4.  In a the span of half of a 12" block you should not have any thread breakages.  Certainly not the 3-5+ I was experiencing for the past month.

When everything comes together it's like the best homemade gravy you've ever had smothering the best pot roast you've ever tastes.  I'm sure there are more keys to unlock and mid arm frame tricks to learn.  But I can't tell you how happy I am that after 5 amazing passes last night I stopped at half way and went to bed.  Today I finished the quilt!  Okay I still have the binding - let me know when you find a quilting frame that will sew that on too, I'm sure everyone will want one.

Do you know what that means?  Another quilt from the quilt list will be gracing my living room.  I wonder which one it will be?  Actually I already know, but you'll find that out soon enough.

Mystery Quilter!

Happy belated fourth of July or an even more belated Canada Day.  How about this?  Happy July!  This is a great month.  The heat is sweltering the entire northern hemisphere and we can for once all agree on the weather.  This is the same month my darling daughter was born.  She came a week earlier than her due date the same as I myself did, which was truly wonderful because I was more than a little sick of being pregnant at that point.  All circumstances considered (such as my post pelvic trauma and current disability for those of you non-followers) my most favorite OB-GYN was on vacation through my due date and promised if DD hadn't been born by the time he got back we would have a c-section August 3.  Oh yes please let's plan a big major deal such as having a baby on my Anniversary!  NOT!

Instead I had the most amazing doctor in the history of doctors.  She was trained as a midwife first and then became a doctor - how cool is that!?  I'd seen her in my office visits before then, but didn't see her for the amazing woman she is.

So now that you've had way to much personal information about me.  How about some birthstone trivia July birthdays have Ruby as their birthstone, my second favorite, only to my own Sapphire - which are really the same exact thing.  The only difference is that Rubys are red sapphires.  Hadn't you ever noticed that Sapphire come in every color except true red?  So now it's time for my MYSTERY QUILTER!  Here is an example of her quilting.  Any guesses?

How about Now?

It's DD!

The new sewing machine is here!  It arrived in the clearly not a sewing machine box that you see Sunny smelling in the picture below.  I felt so lucky when I saw the delivery truck pull up.  Knowing it was heavy I even threw the door open wide and the delivery man was able to place it on our tile entry instead of the wet concrete.  I'm not sure he's allowed to do that, but I found it especially nice.

 Every time I look at it, I think if the Little Elna is little this is a beast!  If a standard mechanical sewing machine is 30% plastic this one is less than 5%.  As a special added bonus to it's 39 or so pounds is that the feet are suction cups.  I'm not talking about those crappy ones they stick on every cheap bathroom accessory, now these are hefty and when you pick up the machine there is an extra pop before they give way and allow you to take the full weight of the machine.  That makes for added fun getting the machine positioned but should really help it stay put in the frame.

Don't sew your leaders!  :-)

So here it is all loaded on the frame.  I plan to practice a bit with the machine unthreaded today so we'll see how that goes.  My DH is always delighted by new mechanical toys (clearly regardless of their nature) and stitched the first row of stitches claiming it was much much smoother on the carriage than he'd thought it would be, and that's after how many weeks of sliding the empty carriage.

So what do I have here?  The red thing on the black arm is the velcro for the stitch regulator, only time will tell if I like that more or less then the standard frame's controls.  Of course it's an Inspira Frame, with a Janome 1600P on it.  This is one of the three machines that will work seamlessly with the Inspira Frame.  I'm using purple fabric to practice on with pink serger thread because I heard the Janome 1600P likes that.  I think I'll be able to see my stitches easily this way and thought it would be prettier than plain muslin.

What else?  Oh yes when I put the machine into the frame, yes I weakling me did it, against even my own forethought and better judgement, but I was so excited; I had trouble with it hitting one of the bars, but of course when DH got home he automatically raised the entire bar system and leveled it so it's perfect now.

Stitchinpenny expressed some concern over the seemingly missing back for Tropical Waves, and I would actually like to say that I'm working on it, I seam ripped out all the Amy Butler fabric, and picked out all the loose little threads before the excitement really started happening here.

No pictures today, just a short post it.  Friday my new Janome 1600P is arriving!  Yippie!  True mine isn't that exact current model, but everything worked out with a friend of a friend.  Now my quilting frame will no longer be lonely - and I need to invest in some UV blocking film for my living room.  Can you recommend any?

Today I cut all the fabrics for my Children of the Sea quilt back so hopefully that one wont have me scratching my head the way Tropical Waves back is. No worries there I think I stumbled onto the answer earlier today when I was stacking the backing fabric.

Christmas Quilt-A-Long Year 2 June BOM

This morning I finished up the BOM's for the Christmas Quilt-A-Long for this month.  Now, I know what you're thinking and I'll tell you this much is certain as long as it's completed in the month it was given you're golden.  Or in this case pink and purple.  I liked the star points even though they gave me fits and I tried to cut off the top of my finger with the rotary cutter (and succeeded in sheering off the corner!)  I like the way they "X" into one another, it's intriguing in it's simplicity.  Perhaps I'll revisit these little "X's" in the future.

I have settled on a machine for the Inspira Frame, and hopefully in the near future I'll be saying things like "on the frame".  Now wouldn't that be nice?  As I didn't want to purchase a second stitch regulator, so I was limited to the Janome 1600, the Pfaff Grand Quilter, and the Viking Mega Quilter.  A friend of a friend just happened to have a Janome 1600P so hopefully very soon it will be happily stitching away for me, or perhaps that's better said "stitching with me".  Either way I'm very exited and happy dreaming of threads, backings, and the oodles of batting I'm sure to need.

In preparation I purchased some plain yardage, just right for stitching a whole cloth for practice.  I plan to draw some directly on the fabric, use my pantograph shelf for others, and of course a bit free form practice as well.  After that I'm hoping to load the Baby Clothes Quilt from way back, but time will tell if I'm ready to switch from the 5' size to the longer 10' size by then.  Would you believe I'm hoping to stitch feathers on my sashing for that quilt?  Here's hoping anyway.  I guess I figure I have already completed the first one (and it's been on the bed for two winters now) so I can't mess it up; this quilt is all "extra".  So we'll have to see how that goes.