Skip to main content

Not So Little Project #2 Done

To the left here is a little water-colored muslin test piece I batted and backed to use for my first attempt at free-motion quilting, so I could see if I could manage it for Not So Little Project #2.

To quilt in free motion you have to drop the feed dogs on your sewing machine, and move the fabric manually. I did that for about 5 minutes before my wrists said "Okay, we're done with this." I finished the rest by spinning the piece with the feed dogs up.

Frankly I suck at machine quilting, but I really stink at free-motion machine quilting. It looks so easy in all those videos, but the reality is you have to manipulate three layers of fabric and batting with only the pressure of your hands and wrists. Mine are simply not up to the task.

Also, moving a quilt as you're sewing and keeping the stitches even and a uniform length should be an Olympic sport. God, I had no idea it was that hard to do. When I think of all the dense free-motion quilted pieces I've seen at shows now it blows my mind. How the heck do they do that kind of work?

Honestly, I'm going to take back everything bad I've ever said about machine quilters. I bow to you, oh Hercules-wristed makers.

Anyway, as you can see I machine-quilted the bargello practice quilt, aka Not So Little Project #2, with my walking foot in straight grid lines, which is all I really know how to do. I finished it much faster (took me a week versus a month or two by hand for this size quilt.) The results aren't horrible, but eh. I need a lot more practice if I'm going to quilt all my work in the future on the machine, which is where I'm heading with the arthritis invading my neck and continuing to erode my hands.

Here's the back, where you can see my quilting lines get a bit wonky (helpful hint on machine quilting: do not use your patchwork as a quilting guide if your seams are off like mine):

I suppose I could invest in a long-arm sewing machine, but they're hugely expensive -- a used floor model will run $5K -- and big. I'd need a whole room to set it up properly. They also seem to be very complicated to operate, and if you use the wrong thread or needle they tend to go wonky. I follow another quilter on Tumblr who bought her first long-arm last year. While she's a pro she's been having all kinds of problems with it. I can't justify the expense when I quilt only for myself and to make gifts.

Then there's my personal preference, which keeps nagging at the back of my mind. I simply don't like the way machine-quilted pieces look compared to hand-quilted pieces. I know, it's a little ridiculous, but there you go. I think I'd rather keep hand-quilting for as long as I can and just limit the number of projects I do every year. I'll make less, and go slower, but I'll be happier with the final results.

I think I have just enough time to do one more little project by hand before Christmas. If all goes well, I'll make these log cabin blocks I bought from Jen at KnJ Studio into a car seat quilt for Oliver:

Labels:

Comments

nightsmusic said…
I prefer the hand quilting as well. It just looks nicer. At least to me. I tried machine quilting a small, manageable piece once but my machine sure wasn't meant to do that. It ate the piece. Good thing it was only a practice piece.

I might have solved my keyboard problem. I'll know more tomorrow and let you know :)
December 12, 2019 at 10:56 AM
the author said…
Hooray for the keyboard problem solution! I need more WIP to read. :)
December 13, 2019 at 8:23 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.
Post a Comment
Read more

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to
Post a Comment
Read more

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more