I have been sewing on my weekend since mid September. Figuring 2D was safer than 3D I started a quilt for my sister. I had about 10 fat quarters from a failed curtain project back in 2008 and thus went to the store to collect another 15 or 20 red, black, or black/white quarters.
Here's what I learned from that project.
1. I don't know how to use a ruler to create square squares...
2. I didn't know to do a 1/4 inch seem
3. My machine was under powered from the start... but I didn't know it
4. I didn't pre-wash
5. I couldn't sew consistently straight lines.
Piecing..... Went OK. I choose to do pin wheels, but my squares weren't square, so my triangles were not normal, and thus my pin wheels were uneven. The fix: I got out a square stencil and re-cut every pin-wheel square down to a smaller finished square.
My Brother LS2125i did not have an adjustable presser foot height, so it struggled getting over joining 4 seems. The fix: I trimmed seems to 1/8th inch to avoid the issue, but I mainly just pulled the sewing through, or lifted the foot and free-styled across. This probably didn't help the square issue.
Assembling rows of squares...
Not all my rows ended up being the same length. ie. 10 pinwheel squares did not (!=) 10 pinwheel squares.... joy.
By the end of the piecing, I was pretty good at fighting through un-even feed to get a 1/4in straight-ish seem.
Backing...
I didn't want the quilt to be on the boring side since the front was so busy, so I took some fat quarters and pieced together some 10in squares to make the backing, this went really well proving to myself that I had made progress on my capabilities.
I did invest in a tool between cutting for my pin-wheels and cutting for my backing.
Shape Cut from June Tailor. Worth every penny. Only issue, it didn't solve my attention deficit.
1st thing's first. I sew after work and on weekends, else, I spend over 60 hours a week out of the house supporting my work habits. Thus, evenings and weekends are ofter total attention check-out times to relax and decompress.
So, I did cut some squares to be 9.5in x 10.5in... oops. Should have had that coffee.
No big deal, I had more than I needed, so I put them to the side and used them as test swatches.
Quilting.... the heartache.
I used pure cotton batting. I like the idea of this quilt eventually being able to decompose fully back to nature.
I put on the walking foot and started to stitch just down the spacers. I wanted simple lines. Nothing fancy.
Here's the pattern that I ended up doing:
a. Test on swatch, set tension.
b. start stitch row
c. check row, row OK
d. finish row
e. check row, row OK
f. Start next row
g. check row, row not ok,tension bad
h. rip out row
i. repeat from a.
I don't think my relaxation time should be so stressful, so I went to a shop to get the machine fixed. And this was the conversation....
"So, you're having tension problems, did you do a test piece?"
"yes I did, but it doesn't hold"
"What type of project are you doing?"
"A quilt."
"And this is happening when you're quilting?"
"Yes." [tell her the steps above]
"Is your machine ok when piecing?"
"Yes"
"I don't think your machine's broken. I think you have a pretty handy light crafting machine that can do some curtains, mending, etc. But you don't have a very hardy motor."
"Ok... so what should I do?"
"Have you looked into sending your quilt out to be quilted?"
"Yes, it's very expensive."
"I hate to say it, but this machine is probably never going to be able to do quilting without a struggle."
"Well, what are my options?" Looking around at all the sewing machines.
She then proceeded to tell me about their machines that they deal and some they didn't.
I came back and purchased a Viking Emerald 203 for $600. It had come in a damaged box and set up as the demo and was 1/2 price. Yay me. I'm sure I could have stalked Ebay for a cheaper deal, but what ever, I had a quilt to finish. More on that later.
I eventually tutored myself so I felt I was ready and I started to quilt again. Night and day. It fed smoothly. I didn't have to adjust the tension at all. Within 2 hours of rolling, squishing, and pushing the bulk around, I had quilted very simply, albeit a little crookedly throughout all my intended areas. I then put together all the binding strips from scraps.
Binding....
I followed this tutorial, Continuous Quilt Binding, except I screwed up one corner and fixed it a bit on the messy side. Then I decided to machine bind the other side as well since my hand sewing is worse than my machine sewing.
Quilt finished! No photos for now, as it's a Christmas gift, and I don't want to give away the surprise.
Am I satisfied with this quilt? Pretty much.
Is this an heirloom quality quilt? No, just too many little mistakes. I give it 5 years tops....
Am I better for having done it? Yes, calmer, more in tune with the stresses in my body, and more aware of my starved creative side.
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