Awesome August sorta turned into Argh August. Just life stuff has me a bit off. I planned on going to the PMQG August meeting and being all social and seeing My People, but life had other plans.
So be it.
I also had plans to make my A is for Alex work into pillows but he insisted on a quilt. Can’t turn down that request!
So I spent my time lurking on Instagram and online, watching the PMQG Meet Up from my sewing machine and iPad. As of last night, I got it pieced, quilted and 1/2 of the binding on. I filled a lot of it in with coordinating wonky stars that was the BOM for PMQG in July….it is just so easy to just go with a pattern I was already in the zone with and it ended up working great for this quilt.
I accidentally sliced the binding at 2 inches instead of giving myself that extra quarter inch. So….I’ll be using pins and Hulk like finger strength to hand bind the back this week.
Makes for really tight corners!
I have a bit leftover that I’ll use up in another quilt I have pieced and ready to baste….if I don’t go too crazy sewing this on!
Short but sweet post. Getting back into the swing of things. Hoping to hit the September PMQG with a bit less “argh” and more “social butterfly.”
It came with a walking foot, a 1/4 inch plastic piecing foot and an open-circle, spring free motion quilting foot. I thought I would be ho-hum about the walking foot, and really into the new FMQ foot, but I’m actually reversed on that.
The walking foot is substantial.
It should have come with a longer bolt to attach it to the machine shank, I’m a bit irked about that, but it works really well. I’ll have to hunt down a longer bolt – right now it stays on if I tighten it down perfectly, but I don’t trust it….there’s just no way there’s enough threads of the bolt in there to sustain it for any lengthy period.
It sure makes for pretty and easy stitching though. These are the feather blocks I’ve been working on, pattern by Anna Maria Horner.
I have no idea what those blocks will be turned into; it has batting and stiff canvas as the backing ala Oh, Fransson!, thinking I’ll want a bag or a dust cover for my KitchenAid or something.
but it seems like everyone else uses these spring-loaded ones, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.
It’s….well, it…it makes me scream “WTF??” a LOT.
It will work great…
And then suddenly my upper tension will go just crazy, like the tension disks are stuck together and will not adjust down no matter what. I didn’t take any photos of the craziness it did on my feather blocks…I just ripped out the crazy stitches put it away before I cried.
But then I used it in class….we intentionally used contrasting threads to watch the tension. I was using 50 wt cotton yellow and gray on white muslin and cotton low-loft batting…
Then, there’s the back…see what I mean by WTF?
So, then I moved back to my little clip on plastic foot….and it was fine.
So…I don’t now. There’s an entire Yahoo Sapphire Group and I swear 90% of the threads (no pun intended) are on this topic alone – the tension and the FMQ foot. I’m seriously considering a Juki for quilting by this time next year….I will not put up with a machine not performing its function. Ms. Viking may just turn into a garment only machine if she keeps this up.
Lastly, it came with a plastic 1/4″ piecing foot. It’s too bad that it’s plastic, but I have to admit, I like it. I’d almost rather switch feet than remember to move the needle to the 1/4″ and back…Ms. Viking resets its needle position all too often, so this is a nice tool. I like the metal guide that comes down and keeps me in place. I like it a lot.
This photo was taken before I forgot I changed to a zig-zag stitch on something else and left this foot on…and put the microtex/sharp needle right through the plastic…so…that hole is a little wider now.
So….there’s my novella on the Viking Quilt Kit for now. I’ll let you know if that spring foot gets me mad enough to chuck it.