Quilting Commences

Good morning, my friends. I hope your weekend is treating you well. And if you have tomorrow off, all the better. When I left you yesterday, I was heading off to the farmer's market with Erik and Mae. It was delightful as always. The weather was chilly, but dry. Erik and Mae practically bought out the place. They buy most of their food from the farmer's market. I picked up about a half dozen apples. I wanted some bell peppers too, but it's a little early for that, I'm afraid. I stopped off at a grocery store on my way home to get the other things we needed.

When I got home, I went to work on the day's inchy. This one was pretty easy: blanket stitch, backstitch, cross stitch, and lots of French knots.

After that, Mike helped me disassemble the plywood and sawhorse tables still set up in the garage. It was 18 months between quilt sandwich sessions. I found myself wondering what would happen in the next 18 months (or so) before I'm ready to sandwich more quilts. Will I even be alive 18 months from now? All indicators are good. I'm optimistic.

Next up on my sewing agenda was to start quilting the Dream Big Leaf panel. This will be good practice for when I quilt the "Maps" quilt. I'll tell you, though, I was dragging my feet about doing anything at all. Two days of sandwiching quilts killed my motivation for anything quilt-related.

It seemed the least I could do (and I was looking for the least I could do) was to get the machine all set up. I cleaned up the bobbin case, lubricated it, gave myself a new needle, and then selected the threads I want to use. This silvery one already had a bobbin wound, and I took that as a positive message from the universe.

It's a 60 weight Bottom Line thread. The first time I used Bottom Line thread, it gave me all kinds of fits tension wise. I wondered why it seemed to be so popular. Enter the TOWA bobbin tension gauge, and my problems with this have disappeared. Now, I really like it as a choice for the bobbin, and I have lots of different colors.

For the top thread, I found this Superior variegated silver. This is one of the "Fantastico" line. All the threads I'm showing you are gifts from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila. Thank you, Ila. 

This happens to be a 40 weight polyester thread. The cone is partially used, but I still think I have enough for my whole project.

Even if I run out, I can switch off to this silvery one, and I doubt anyone will be the wiser.

This one is from the "Magnifico" line...another 40 weight thread.

So...bobbin loaded, machine threaded, I folded some of the backing fabric over the excess batting to test the tension. I was getting some eyelashes on top. Also, if you look closely, you can see little dots of the bobbin thread being pulled to the top.

I read something once that gave me a memory hook I could remember and work with. It likened the top and bottom threads to a "tug of war." If the top thread is winning the tug of war (meaning, the bottom thread is being pulled to the top), then the top thread tension is too tight. Conversely, if the bottom thread is winning the tug of war (meaning, that the top thread is being pulled to the bottom), then the bottom thread tension is too tight. Since I'm using a TOWA bobbin tension gauge, I always adjust the bobbin tension before loading the bobbin into the machine. That way, I'm only making adjustments to the top thread...either loosening or tightening. In this case, I was getting eyelashes, which I interpreted as meaning the top thread tension was too tight. When I loosened it, the problem went away.

Looking at the bottom thread tension, it looks pretty good there.

Really, I needed a day to do nothing, and so setting up the machine and barely starting on the quilting was as much as I was up for. I stitched one leaf and called it quits.

Looking at the bottom, it's looking good there too.

On today's agenda I have a couple of housekeeping chores to do, and it's a walking day for me. By afternoon, I should be ready to sit down and do some serious quilting.

The only other thing I have to tell you is that Smitty is moving into his shedding phase. Mike gave him a good brushing yesterday with the brush and the "furminator." He brushed off enough fuzz to create another cat. 

Smitty was soaking in the brushing and scratching his face against the blue brush there at the same time. One's cat can never get too much brushing. Of course, modesty is another matter, and so I gave him some help with that.

The End.