Sunny Stars

I really enjoy free motion quilting my quilts.  When it goes right.  I've had mixed luck with machines and feet and thread.  There was a time that no quilt was quilted without a lot of swearing at skipped stitches and broken thread.  Grr...

But when the planets align it is a joy and almost meditative experience to quilt.  The last quilt was wonderful.  A few weeks ago I loaded the sewing machine with the same quilting thread and expected a repeat.  So imagine my surprise when the thread refused to behave.  Eventually I worked it out.  

Starting the quilting process is always a little nerve wracking.  Some of it's the "OMG, how am I going to quilt this whole thing?" or "where do I even start?".  I find it difficult to commit myself to quilting the first square foot.  It can take me days to work up the nerve to start stitching.  Silly, isn't it?  But once I get going, the stitching takes on a life of its own and I can't wait to sit down and quilt some more.  

I Like Thursday: Summer Stuff

How has your summer been going?  Mine has been too hot.  The grass in my yard is burnt, the squash flowered but no fruit and somebody's been eating my zinnias.  Delays on my black-and-white quilt means it won't be done in time to submit to local fairs.  Bummer. 

But this is a post of likes - and there's been all sorts of good things this summer. 

No, I Did Not Forget

Behold!   Quilting.

I had this darned quilt sandwiched and basted a month ago, then cleaned the sewing machine, set it up for quilting.  I had free motion quilted my previous quilt (Birds of a Feather) with the same thread.  Easy peasy, right?  Simply load up the quilting thread, reset the tension, drop the feed dogs and away I go!

Not.

I spent a week of evenings fighting with thread tension.  It would run a straight stitch with feed dogs no problem.  Drop the feeds and try to free motion?  Nested gnarled mess.  I started to procrastinate; between gardening and a family vacation I eventually hit full-on denial.  The good news?  In an effort to find anything to do other than this quilt I finally got some work done on my car and finished several fix-it projects around the house.  

However, my sewing room is also my office.  Every day I faced that quilt and machine.  I vowed to either get the tension right or switch to a different machine.  I rewound a new bobbin and oddly enough, that seemed to do the trick.  I had to rip out a few first attempts, but after that I got in 20 minutes or so of real quilting.

Busy weekend, but I got a chance to sew some more last night.  Eleven stars so far.  Tension is a little haphazard - so I'm playing with that.  At least it's not so far off I need to rip and restitch.  Fingers crossed! 

Bye Madea!

We were out grocery shopping on Saturday morning when I got the text:  our foster guinea pig Madea had a potential adopter.  Could we come by that afternoon to drop her off?  Just like that, Madea is gone. 

She really settled in over the last couple of weeks.  I hid carrot pieces around the cage that she she spent time finding.  She loved the cozy I put on the third level and would often spend entire afternoons chilling in the bag.  Turned out she enjoyed being cuddled, so I tried to include some lap-time in the evening.  But I could tell she was bored.  A companion should really help with that.