Hands or Feet?

Have you ever used the BSR on a Bernina? I have an 830 and have played with it now and then and have not yet found my rhythm. Some folks say if you are good at free motion quilting then it isn't really helpful. Others love it for the speed control and stitch length regulation, no matter how fast or slow they go.

I do quite a bit of free motion quilting, so this weekend, I decided to play. I spent an hour or so using the BSR with the foot pedal and another couple of hours using my hands to control the speed. You know, I like the fact that I only have to think about my hands, but I find that when I need to move my hands I am just not coordinated enough (yet :-)) not to cause a noticeable stop/start in my quilting. I think that when I use the foot peddle my mind already knows to slow the machine down so I can use my hands... hey it is what I have been doing for years.

Yes, I know like anything else, I will have to play with it a bit more to get comfortable. I am just looking for any pointers or thoughts you might feel comfortable sharing...

Do you use a BSR? How long did it take you to get comfortable with it?

Foot or Hand control or both, depending on what you are quilting?

Yes, this inquiring mind wants to know ?

Progress!

So after a wonderful sunny afternoon seeing my niece graduate from the same Catholic High School (Our Lady of Good Counsel Academy) that my daughter graduated from 4 years ago, I spent the evening playing again with my 830. And yes, I think I made good progress.

I realized that I was threading the top thread wrong.... through the wrong spindle. You see, the 830 has 3 cone holders, one that is considered the front spindle and uses two guides when you are winding the bobbin and two additional spindles that each have their own guide. Well of course, once I wound the bobbin, I just assumed that when you threaded the top thread, that you used two guides as well. WRONG! As I was sewing I noticed that every time the thread broke, if I looked up the thread was twisted over the guides. So I looked in the book and the picture that went along with loading top thread showed only one guide in use, vs the picture for winding the bobbin. And if I had bothered to read the text, vs assuming I knew what I was doing after winding the bobbin, then I would have known that it says use 'the' corresponding guide for the 'spindle' you placed the cone on... duh!@!@!. 'the', 'spindle' these are singular parts of speech, singular as in ONE, not two!@!@!.

With this new knowledge under my belt, I attempted once again to free motion quilt using my favorite Superior Rainbow thread. Much better... but still every once and a while the error message indicating I was out of top thread would appear. Since I knew I had a full cone, something had to be wrong. Taking a closer look, I noticed that the thread was no longer in the round whole on the side of the machine... somehow it had slipped out of the sensor that detects the top thread. So I lowered the tension to 1, vs the 2 or 2.25 that was working so well on the YLI and Coats and Clark threads. Whoo Hoo!!! no more breaks, no more spit ups... just smooth sailing.
I feel much better!! Tomorrow, I will try a larger piece to ensure I have cracked the mystery. But for now I fell good. :-)

Finally!

OK... what a weekend this turned out to be. On Friday night I told everyone that my new Bernina 830 was in, but with the Craft Show on Saturday, I wouldn't be able to pick it up until Sunday... ughhh!

As it turned out, we would have had time to pick up my new baby, if my DH wasn't in such a hurry to get me home to my Surprise Birthday Party!! My children, under the direction of my oldest, Raven, who snuck into town, organized and threw me a surprise 50th Birthday Party. My birthday was actually on the 5th, but we haven't been home a single weekend in May. Actually, she had started planning this in December, but yes, the first 3 weekends of May, were already booked by then... sorry Sweetie :-)

Anyway, so Saturday afternoon, no go, but for good reason :-).... Sunday, with recuperation, I didn't think I would get my DH up and out to go help me get it... but he did... good thing. There were no men in the store with the long weekend and we definitely needed muscle to move this baby... yeah! So home it came, but with dinner and spending time at my Mom's, there wasn't much play time.

But boy, oh boy... taking this baby out of the box is overwhelming. Talk about a lot of stuff!! By the time I was able to set it up and listen to the first 50 minutes of the instructional DVD, it was time to get dinner going. But here are some pics of the boxes as they moved into my studio, and the Thank You message that is right under the top of the box with the machine in it. Yes, there is more than one huge box. The biggest is the 830 of course, but the embroidery module box is also a pretty good size as you can see.

Here is a picture of it sitting in place in my studio. They say you need a 20" x 7" hole for this baby, but it is really more like 20.5". This baby just made it in the opening in my sewing table top.... boy was it close! Here are some of the pictures of the stuff that comes with it. 10 feet in all, including the BSR and 5 of those nice large bobbins. Supposedly they hold 40% more thread than the other Bernina bobbins, but I am not sure it is more than 10-20% larger than the Viking bobbins I have been using over the last 10 years.I really like the 3 large spool holders. I use a lot of Superior Threads and it is definitely more economical to but the large cones, which before meant I had to use one of their Cone Stands, which is still sitting off to the side. Now I can have my bobbin spool loaded as well as two different spools for the top. Sweet!

So after watching the DVD, it was time for dinner and then off to my Mom's. So it was after 9pm before I was able to sit back down and play. I followed the directions for threading the machine and loading the bobbin, and of course I had issues at first, but got that up and going. Now it was time to sew.... I played with the straight, zigzag and satin stitches.... the ones I use the most and although my baby sews extremely smooth, there is a definite difference to the feel of the Bernina 830 then my old Viking 535. It will take some time to learn, but I had to use what seemed like a smaller satin stitch setting to get the look I aim for on my Viking. But hey, that's ok with me.

I didn't fool with too many stitches, because I was anxious to try free motion quilting... with and without the BSR. I played last night, using the BSR and the foot control. Here is my initial attempt. I have had heard some machine quilters are who pretty good, say they didn't like the BSR, so I was anxious. It definitely felt clumsy initially, but I think with some time at the machine, I can get the hang of it.
Today, I picked up where I left off and played with the BSR, but with no foot control... boy oh boy, much smoother. But it still will take some getting used to. Here is a view of today's work. Notice, not as many white pebbles caused by stopping to long as you change directions....
I found that today, using a bobbin loaded with Superiors Bottomline and Superior Masterpiece in the top, I had to adjust the tension a little. Otherwise, it kept skipping stitches, breaking or indicating that the top thread was out. I didn't have to do that last night, when I was using the preloaded bobbin vs the Bottomline.

A couple of things to note from my first few hours of play.... why don't machine manufacturers include the basic quilting feet with the machine? I had to buy the 1/4" foot for my Viking and it looks like I will have to buy the 1/4" foot for the Bernina as well. I just think with 10 feet, the least expensive would probably be the 1/4" or patchwork foot as they call it. So why not include it??? Additionally, I could definitely see time I would like to quilt without the BSR.... why not include the open toe free motion quilting foot as well.... it is a machine sold in quilt stores... quilters are one of the top 2 primary markets for the machine. So again, why not include it in the box??? You know I am making a list of needed feet.... 1/4" open toe free motion, piping... and I am sure it will grow. Good think, there were plenty of envelopes at the B'Day party :-).

Oh well... enough for tonight.... I will have to find time to play tomorrow as well :-)