Quilting in Perfect Harmony

Yesterday I was able to finish all the quilting for the Perfect Harmony quilt.  It was a bit of a challenge figuring out all the little idiosyncrasies of my new machine.  I used the walking foot for echoing the curves of the guitars, and then I switched to the stitch regulator to do some pebbling on the background fabric.

I was trying to make each guitar just a little different from the one beside it so that I was echoing a different curve on each one.

All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with how it is turning out.

This next image shows the pebbling.  I was using a monofilament thread in the bobbin with the walking foot, but when I switched to the stitch regulator, it didn't seem to recognize the monofilament thread.  I kept getting a message that the bobbin was out of thread.  Since I have lots of wound bobbins from my old machine that are incompatible with my new machine, I've been winding the thread from the old bobbins to the new ones.  With the monofilament thread, it didn't wind very smoothly, and that could be the problem.  In any case, I wasn't able to continue with the monofilament thread for the pebbling and had to switch to a cotton thread.  It looks fine, but I was still frustrated.  It's the blessing and curse of having a new machine.

Despite the problems I had with the bobbin, I liked the way it sewed with the stitch regulator.  I have a stitch regulator on my old machine as well, but this new one is updated a little bit.

I sewed a pocket on each upper corner of the quilt so that I can insert some sort of dowel into it for hanging.  I saw this method on someone's blog, but I'm afraid I can't remember whose it was now.  This quilt is 24 inches wide, and so it's possible I'll need to add a loop in the center to keep it from sagging.

Finally, I sewed a little green straight stitch around the border and then sewed on the binding.  

This morning I sat and hand-sewed the binding about half way around before quitting.  I'll finish it up later today or tomorrow morning.

Next up is another wall-hanging.  This is my March NewFO project.

It might need a larger border, but my goal is to hang this quilt over the circuit breaker panel in my laundry room.  It has real miniature clothes pins that attach somehow to make it three dimensional.  So far, I haven't looked at the instructions, and so I'm not sure exactly how they attach.  You may remember the quilt I made for my friend Lisa.

The Laundry Room quilt is by the same designer.

So that's it from me this morning.  I want to watch the instructional video for my sewing machine, and I need to go do my Curves workout.  Even after just taking one week off, I feel out of the groove for that.  After that, I'm going to go do a half grocery shop...just to get us through the weekend.  

Just now I looked outside, and it is snowing.  Hm.  So glad Spring has finally arrived.