Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Carrie's quilt


Carrie brought me another of her amazing applique quilts. Just realizing how much this photo does not do it justice.

Carrie prefers cotton thread and I just happened to have a small cone of light pink Aurifil. I had used the 40wt Aurifil from the bigger cones with no trouble. Day 1: no trouble/perfect tension. Day 2: skipping stitches, bad tension, and thread breakage. What the hey?!


I tried everything. I changed my needle. I turned my needle just a bit. Maybe it wasn't aligned right. I adjusted the bobbin tension. I adjusted the top tension. I cleaned out the lint from the bobbin area. I checked the bobbin itself for lint. I checked the tension discs for lint. I sent two longarmmers emergency help requests. They suggested all the things I had thought of. We were all stumped.

Then, as I was test quilting on a sample piece, I glanced over a the cone and realized that the thread was pulling off the cone unevenly. There would be little jumps, which led to breakage and skipped stitches. Only problem, I don't have a horizontal thread holder on my George. Solution? Turn the whole thing on its side and stick the end into a leftover piece from my design wall. Back to perfect tension, yay!

Did I mention that longarms are finicky? Goodness sakes!


It was smooth sailing the rest of the way, thank goodness. Don't think I could take any more of that stress!


Isn't this squirrel adorable?



This one is my favorite. I love that bunny with his sweet little puffy tail.


Thanks Carrie! I had to keep stopping to admire the perfect appliqued curves.

5 comments:

  1. Lovely quilting, it really highlights the applique!

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  2. you took some great photos of your AWESOME quilting! I love what you did. Thanks!!

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  3. Wow! Gorgeous quilting Laura!! Great pix of Carrie's gorgeous applique. You two are the perfect team. Love all the stitching, specifically your back fill, wonderful!
    Great fix with the thread spool :0) Had to laugh, you should see some of the weird contraptions I've rigged up on my longarm, they are finicky!

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  4. Unbelievably gorgeous quilt and quilting, You have taken an already spectacular quilt to the statosphere with this level of quilting, Laura. It is the ultimate combination of outstanding workmanship! Bravo!!

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  5. Oh so lovely! Carrie is a master of applique and your quilting makes this sing!

    And yes, these delightful machines are very particular, they want thing their way!

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