Lots of Learning

Sea-themed quilting

Quilting my summer quilt has been quite an experience.  I haven't free motion quilted anything of this size before.  Heck - I haven't made a queen sized quilt since my first one in 2001.  Because this quilt has no batting, I was mostly interested in just tacking it down the front to the back.  So I didn't plan to densely quilt the whole thing - I mostly wanted to add some interest in the melon and cream colored sections.

In quilting this, I learned a bunch of things:

• Basting was a must.  I started with pins, and the first time I put it under the presser foot, I knew that was a bad idea. 
• Quilting gloves were a life saver.  I generally hate not being able to feel what I'm working on, but in this case, I was much happier being able to move the material where it needed to go.  Got a lot of mileage from a pair of $2 gloves.
  
• Thread breaks on my machine if I pull the needle too close to the front edge of the throat plate.  I still need to learn to keep the needle up to speed and not move too fast.
• Need to clean out the bottom gears from time to time and make sure the needle is in tight after tipping the machine over.  That was a lesson I won't soon forget.
• Small areas and small designs are a lot easier to quilt than big ones.  Doing the seaweed on the melon green area was nerve wracking.  In part because I didn't have a good view of the whole area while working on it.  The little 4" squares were so much easier to deal with.
• Things look a lot better from a distance than close up.  I finished with several bits of seaweed and was sure I'd be ripping them all out.  They were wobbly and not how I envisioned.  But when the quilt was spread out and I took a step back - they looked great.  I bet I couldn't even find the "problem" seaweed at this point.
• Practice.  Practice.  Practice.  Every design I finished looked or stitched up so much easier than the first bit.  I was panicked when I first sat down to quilt, and by the end, was much calmer, even when starting a pattern I'd never tried before.
• I think the fully quilted white space looks better than the ones with something in the middle.  I need to remember that for the next project.  
• High contrast thread shows the quilted design better.  Duh.  I was so unsure of what I was doing, I matched the thread pretty close to the fabric.  Good, because my I-don't-know-what-the-hell-I'm-doing stuff is pretty hidden.  Bummer, because the sections I did well aren't really visible.  I guess I can't have it both ways. 

At this point, I'm quilted, mostly bound.  I have a little bit if cleanup, and need to design and attach a label.  I may actually get it onto the bed for Labor Day!