Highlights

I got a chance to the highlighting on the pink ribbon sections tonight. They are coming out pretty good.

I decided that after doing the scribble (my term) that you need to outline the inner curve again so that it is smooth. But other than that I like the look.
They no longer look flat, it really does give them a feeling of being on their edge. Unfortunately, highlighting the green sections will have to wait until I order some thread, because I don't have any Madeira Rayon that is lighter and the LQS around me don't carry Madeira thread (the one that did closed in March)... ughhh.

That's ok, I will just have to work on another part of this project... like adding some satin stitch designs or something. Will have to get out the sketch pad and doodle on it for a few days :-).

Back to my experiement...

Hi... well with the initial learning phase on my 830 behind me, I am back to the piece I was experimenting with as a result of the Super Seminar.... my Libby Lehman thread painting. I am making progress..... I used water soluble thread to transfer the 'splat' from the freezer paper to fabric.

I stabilized the segment first, then outlined it and began filling the segment with little circles.

It is coming along. Tonight I hope to finish the green splats and start on the pink ones. I am using Madeira Rayon's in Hot Pink and Lime Green. I found some Razzle Dazzle in the my draw in just the right colors (purple, pink and green) and I may echo the design using bobbin painting.

I have some purple/silver metallic that I might outline the rectangle with as well... Who knows, it is an idea.... :-)

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You...

I had the ladies over this afternoon for my second annual quilting get together. Well we do more socializing than anything else, but we at least talk about quilting :-). What a wonderful afternoon it was! It is so nice to spend a day with quilting friends, with no outside interruptions... (my son and DH are off playing Paint Ball :-).

But I do want to share with you why I am Thankful. I am Thankful, because Anne, one of my friends who does quite a bit of sewing, looked at my problem with the Superior Rainbow thread on the Bernina 830 and suggested I try one of two things. Either I switch to a single whole plate or I move my needle over two positions to the left. Since the machine was all set up. I moved the needle. And what do you know.... NO MORE SKIPPED STITCHES and NO MORE SPIT UP ON THE BACK WITH THREAD BREAKAGE!!! I am so excited!!! Teri, my friend who teaches machine quilting sat down at my 'Baby' as she puts it, and gave it a spin.... it worked like a charm. Of course, I had to prove it for myself, and it ran smoothly.

So what was the difference... why the needle position? Anne says that sometimes it is just the way the thread comes down and makes contact with the bobbin. She has experienced the same thing on broadcloth, and needed to make the change.

So... time to clean up the kitchen and get to stitching. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You Anne...

BTW, now I have to let Bob at Superior Thread and Alex Anderson know that the problem is fixed. Both tried suggestion, after suggestion and none of their ideas worked :-)

Mother Natures Inspiration

Last Saturday I walked out my front door and stopped... my perennial garden was just coming into mid bloom and I had to take a picture. I was too lazy to go back in the house to find my camera, so I grabbed my cell phone and took some shots. After a week of looking at the photo as my wallpaper on my cell phone it hit me... ah ha....
I had been working on this play piece. Something to play with while I got acquainted with my 830 and the Aurifil thread my friend Alex Veronelli (link for those of you one facebook) sent me last month. (If anyone knows of an Aurifil shop in southern NY... Please let me know.) Anyway... I had been working on this piece, making feathers around the center flower (I am just learning how to make feathers freehand), but couldn't decide what to do as the background quilting, or in the boarders. Well as I gazed at my flowers (all yellow and pink and green) it hit me. The play piece was of a large pink and yellow flower... why not applique daisy's in the boarder squares and use a freeform continuous line leaf pattern for the background.... sort of flowers and leaves and feathers... all from Mother Nature.

And so this week, that is what I did. I ripped out all the original background echo quilting that I wasn't happy with and used the same pink, yellow and orange variegated Aurifil Mako Cotton thread to make the daisy's and the leaves in the boarder. Then I used Sulky cotton in a brown to match the background and did the leaves all around the center flower and feathers I had previously done.While I am still learning what tension settings to use on what thread on the 830, I was happy with my play. I've decided I like the weight of the Aurifl Mako thread for quilting you want to show. Next I need to play with the lighter weight for quilting I want to sink into the top. Anyway, here are some more pics....

This last picture I took this morning, so the color is better. It was just so funny, that Alex had sent me a variegated, yellow and pink thread.... it worked really well with the fabrics I had already pulled together. The boarder fabric is a piece of Ricky Tims hand dyes... I love this particular piece so much I bought 3 yds when at his Super Seminar this past spring. Yummm...

Ok, so not perfect, but a play peice is just that... I learned alot about the stitch speed on the Bernina 830 and tension setting depending on the thread. I guess it is about time I went back to work on all those UFO's I started in the last 6 months. I think I have at least 3 :-)... definitely not my style. I feel guilty... but hey I had to play with my new machine. RIGHT!!!

Yes, frogging is ok...

Tonight, for the first time in almost two weeks, I sat down at my machine to quilt. Boy, how I missed the mindless play. That is, until I realized that I had sewn, ripped and re-sewn the same area at least five or six time. Wait... for those of you who now me, I am not a perfectionist when it comes to free motion quilting. Yes, I like things to look nice, but why in the world was I re-quilting the same area so many times on a piece that was supposed to be a play piece to get to know what my 830 could really do? What in the world was I doing... you don't frog a play piece over and over again.

Well, I guess it was at that moment that I realized that it was ok, to use my seam ripper as just another tool in the quilting process, just like my rotary cutter is an important tool in piecing. Would I use a strip that was cut crooked? No, I would simply put the strip in my scrap pile and re-cut. So why not look at the seam ripper as just another tool that allows my quilting to be better... hmphhh... what a novel idea. At least for me :-)... Why do we look at the seam ripper and say 'Oh no, I have to un-sew or frog!' Why not say, 'wow that isn't what I wanted to do to, thank the lord for the seam ripper, so I fcan ix it.'?

Then I realized that quite a few of my quilting friends use their seam ripper over and over again..... never complaining. They just do it as a matter of fact. Is that why their free motion quilting is always just a bit better than mine... yes I said just a bit :-).... No seriously, doesn't a poet use an eraser? Duh!!!

Ok, so does this mean I have reached a plateau of maturity in my quilting?? Who knows, but one thing for sure, good thing I like buying thread!

I hope it helps...

A friend and fellow quilter, Teri, pointed me to a blog today. OMG... I wish I was home and not traveling. CJ has a post on threading the Bernina 830 properly, so you don't have all the tension problems... From the comments it appears that she has solved others problems more than once. So I sure hope it solves my problems. It makes sense, if you don't have the thread in all the guides, no wonder the 830 doesn't register the thread properly at times, hence the tension is off.

I will give it a try, when I get home next week. For now, I am in Miami helping my daughter, Raven, get settled in her new apartment. She starts her first real job on Monday, July 6th!

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 :-).