My free-motion quilting will never improve if I keep using the computer on my quilting machine, but when it looks so good (and wasn’t cheap), it’s hard not to use it.
Yesterday I had a half-baked plan and I’ve tweaked it. The spots with the Xs I’ve done. Well, I’ve done more but didn’t go back and take a picture.
I wanted my feathers to show motion. This is what I came up with. The tail will point the direction, going around in a circle. Of course now that I look at this, maybe I should have pointed the far right blocks toward the top center. Oh well. That is what a practice quilt is for. Anyway, the center block has no point. On the second row of blocks, in the middle I ran out of bobbin, then my program shut down. Fortunately it was only the last two feathers in the wreath, so I did them free hand as it was easier than trying to realign the software.
I need practice (see opening comment).
But that’s not when I got cocky.
I dropped my motif in what I thought was a boundary. I thought it was a bit large on the screen, and ignored my instincts. I started up the machine and it started where I thought it was supposed to. I went back to my lap top to search for the perfect pattern for the small neutral blocks (I think I found it). With about 3 feathers left to stitch I realized the machine was stitching all over the HSTs – not because it was doing something wrong, but because I told it wrong. I stopped the machine and started ripping out. That will be tomorrow’s after work activity.
I’m second guessing my thread color now as well. Originally I was going to use a red, white and blue thread on the top and a blue bobbin. But I changed my mind and opted for Linen on the top. Not wanting to deal with blue coming through to the top, I used Linen in the bobbin.
When I wrote this post, I forgot that I needed to link it up to Finished (or Not) Friday over at Alycia Quilts.
It’s lovely Pam. I’m curious and am wondering your computerized quilting is mentioned. Could you share your tools at some time in a future post please. Thanks.
Lovely feather quilting design, it’s going to be a fantastic quilt!
Oh no!! I hate ripping! but um, I haven’t caught up on my weekly blog reading – and your quilt you have loaded looked like your wedding quilt but the colors were wrong and my brain froze…. I couldn’t comprehend – haha!!! That’s what I get for no caffeine before reading!
I think quilting this one is a good idea first – that way you know exactly what to do and not to do – and oh my feathers… you just can’t go wrong there!