Thread, Thread, Thread...

Thread... I think just about every 'art' quilter or fiber artist or quilter or whatever we call ourselves have a love affair with thread. We have cotton thread, rayon thread, polyester thread, wool thread, metallic thread and silk thread. Thread with sheen, thread that is thick and thread that is thin. Thread made by Isacord or Sulky or Madiera or Gutterman or Aurifil or Superior or YLI or Coats & Clark, or... or... or....

I for one, have some of every type, every brand above, plus some. I think I love my thread as much as I love my fabric. Well almost :-)... But one thing that I have noticed as I started really using my Bernina 830, is that thread that was almost lint free on my old Viking throws off tons of lint on the Bernina. Some, so much so, that I have to clean the machine in between bobbin changes. On my Viking, using the same assortment of threads, I almost never saw a buildup of lint. In fact, I could go two full quilts before I realized... OOPS!, I haven't cleaned the machine since I worked on that other project.

I wonder why that is? I know many of you have multiple machines. Do you see a difference in the lint build-up on one type vs another? Or even on one model vs another?

Yes, those same inquiring minds want to know...... Oh, but wait, no one had a thought on the last question this inquiring blogger posted. Oh well... I guess I will just have to ponder this thought on my own for awhile.

I am still alive....

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth... I have just been real busy!

Work has picked up and we are getting ready to move my daughter Raven down to Miami, to start her professional career. It is really stressful to have your first born move away. Practically my entire family still lives in Mt. Vernon, NY, a small town of 4 sq miles. I live across the street from the house that I was born in. So, to have my baby move 24 hours away by car... OMG!!! We went down to Phili today to help her load the car. She will drive to Washington and put her car on the Auto Train in the morning. My husband and I will fly down on Tuesday to meet her and help her get settled. So it has been a crazy weekend on top of a crazy month.

But I have done some quilting... I have been playing with my Bernina 830, trying to figure out why I am having such a hard time getting the machine to stitch properly with my favorite thread. The LQS where I brought my machine has told me to bring it in. It appears that there is a new software patch that does some tweaks, so I am hoping that is the problem. But today on facebook, I met another local quilter who has an 830 and it appears she and a few others with the 830 are having some of the same problems, especially when using the BSR. So if the patch doesn't fix the problem, I hope Bernina is reading all the comments on the web and working on a fix.

But, Thursday I decided to stop playing around and started a small piece... just a play piece to actually see how the 830 works on a real project vs on test sandwiches. I received some Aurifil thread from my Italian facebook friend that I wanted to try out. So I have put together a small piece and am quilting in. I LOVE the colors. The piece is brown, pink and yellow and I am quilting it with a variegated Aurifil cotton in pink, orange and yellow. I like it alot. I promise pictures of both the new thread and the piece when we get back from Miami.

For tonight, I just wanted to let you know, that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. Two weeks with no posts, is indeed a long time for me :-).

I forgot to mention!!!

While in Europe, I tried my best to find some Aurifil thread to bring home and play with. I have been hearing a lot about this thread on blogs and on facebook and wanted to try it out. Unfortunately, the closest shop that carries it by me is 2 hours away.

Since many of the bloggers I see using Aurifil are Europeans, I decided to take a look at the shop finder on their website and find a shop by my hotels/meetings in London or Paris. There was nothing real close in London, although I called one shop listed and they were closed. But I did find two business close enough to my hotel in Paris. So while in Paris, I gave them a call, as neither seemed to be quilt or patchwork shops. The first was a clothing designer, who used Aurifil threads, but no one their spoke English so I didn't bother visiting them. The second appeared to be a craft shop from the website, and even though they didn't mention Aurifil on their site, I had the concierge give them a call. I heard him specifically ask for Aurifil thread and he was told that they carried it. So I jumped in a taxi before my meeting and off I went to the shop. Well, even though it is a nice enough shop (La Boutique Modes de Travuax) they do NOT sell Aurifil. DMC (threads and flosses) and Quiterman yes, but no Aurifil. They had no idea of what I was talking about, even though I had a picture of the Aurifil display from the company website. The confusion is the word for thread is 'fil' in French, so when they heard the concierge ask for Aurifil, they just assumed fil or thread.

You can imagine my disappointment. So while in the taxi to my meeting, I posted a comment on the Aurifil facebook group page about my adventures and disappointment. Well, by the time I came out of my meeting, there was an offer by Alex Veronelli, the Product Manager to ship me some of their thread, since I had worked so hard to try and buy some. Talk about customer service! Now I can't wait until it arrives. I will be like a kid waiting for Christmas!!!

I will make sure to post some samples of my work once the thread does show up!

I've been playing...

As you can imagine, I have been playing whenever I can get a free moment with my new Bernina 830. OMG... this thing does so much, I will never figure it all out. So this week, I decided to play with the BSR and some of my favorite threads to see what it is like to free motion quilt on this baby.

Well, first I had to figure out how the BSR works... took me a few seconds, but it wasn't hard. The book, DVD and screen do a good job of walking you through how to use it. Next came the actual quilting. First I used Superior Masterpiece with Bottomline in the bobbin. Once I adjusted the tension to 3.5, all was fine... it purred like a baby. Quilting was smooth, just as long as I didn't try to go to fast. Then it peeped at me :-). Next, still with Bottomline in the bobbin, I tried one of my favorite threads, Superior Rainbow... ughhh... talk about breakage and spit up. No, 3.5 was not going to make it. After trying tension settings ranging from 1.0 to 4.0 (the default) I gave up and tried another thread. The YLI variegated worked like a charm at a tension setting of 2.25. I was able to do feathers, swirls and echoed swirls, with no issues, still with the Bottomline as the bobbin thread. Next up was Coats and Clarks twisted variegated. It too like the Rainbow was problematic... spit up on the back, jumped stitches, breakage... you name it, it did it. I wonder if because the Superior Rainbow and CC twisted variegated have a sheen, unlike the flat Masterpeice and YLI, if it causes the problem... or maybe because they are a heavier thread. I tried changing needles to a Sharp 90/14 (I don't know what comes in the 830 straight out of the box, so I thought maybe a new needle.)... no help!

I tried re-threading the bobbin, and top thread... no luck. Has anyone had this issue? Is there a secret tension setting guide for the 830? Or a 830 blog, that I should join??

I will try to make it to the shop tomorrow where I purchased my machine, but my schedule is tight and the person who knows it all, isn't there on Sundays. So any insight by anyone reading this is appreciated...