Linking up with Elm Street Quilts.
Well July certainly passed by quite quickly. However its good to look back and see what did I achieve in terms of a quilting goal over that time.
My goal was to learn to use my new Bernina sit down Q20 quilting machine. Included in that was to buy a suitable chair and foot rest of some sort because the Horn table was higher than I realised.
I feel like I am at ease using the machine. Using an online guide and lots of You Tube I figured out most although not all things! I can easily thread it now and change the needle. To do that you use a little screwdriver! I bought some top stitch needles to try as that is what Lori Kennedy suggests using for quilting.
The bobbin is larger than an ordinary bobbing and I can fill it and insert it. It says in the book to clean out the machine and oil it daily. And I’ve found that is pretty much the truth! I can do that now as well.
The one think I haven’t got sorted yet is the tension of top and bottom thread at times. With the machine comes a bobbin meter kind of thing so that if its not at a certain “pull” you adjust the bobbin until it’s right. I am not quite brave enough to play around with the bobbin at present which you do with a screwdriver and little screw on the bobbin. I think I’ll wait out on that one.
I also found it is certainly a lot easier to move a quilt around and so much easier on arms and shoulders! It has a couple of BSR levels and one where you don’t have to use the BSR at all. I prefer the BSR!!
After some play with fat quarter sandwiches I quilted a baby boy’s quilt for the neonatal intensive care (NICU)
Moving on from there I took on a quilt of mine that I’d had since I began quilting. I’d stitched it in the ditch but I knew it needed more quilting before I washed it. So five years later I did! In the meantime I did use it a lot and some of my favourite colours!
I did an overall big flower with a little echoing and did a kind of fmq shell in the border. It was the first time doing an overall pattern on a quilt and I rather liked the effect.
Next I moved on to a quilt that I had done as a Pat Sloan sew along and this quilt I have given to a young girl I know through family.
I used one all over meander for this one and I loved doing that, I loved how it just seemed to meld the whole quilt together into one. This quilt is 59 inches by 72 inches so it was good to do it on the Q20.
Finally I completed two more NICU quilts. On the last one – the girl’s one I finally managed to get it to the size Wellington hospital likes. I had to work out what would be taken up in the quilting and washing!!
During the month I also tracked down a footstool that is height adjustable and settled for a a bar stool for now for sewing. If that doesn’t work out over the next few months I’ll seek something more in a chair.
