Progress on Practice Wholecloth

My practice project is coming along. However today, when I finally sat down to continue we had a power outage, so I did not get as much done as I would have liked.

I have been stitching this wholecloth to practice a number of things
- to try my new circle and arc rulers
- to try a new thread - Magnifico from Superior threads
- to continue to explore the HQ Sweet 16, i.e. how different will it be to stitch something that is quite familiar to me but obviously will feel completely different on the Sweet 16

and then I added to the list
- used the wave ruler to put in a spine line for my feathers
- stitched my feathers freehand around just for fun

This is how far I got today

The thread continues to give me trouble...I used Bottomline in the bobbin. Funny enough the yellow thread is no problem but the blue and the red appear much more fiddly to me. Periodically throughout the piece I have had moments when I had to adjust the tension and literally go through the whole process of testing and re-testing etc. In between also watched several YouTube videos on tension. I think I know how to set the tension correct but for that blue thread, it just wants the bobbin tension so much tighter than I thought.  I will take the thread to my HQ group and asked about this. However I also have discovered that a different thread in the bobbin, something like SoFine 50/3 or Rasant  (i.e. something closer to the weight of Magnifico) works much better for me...the stitches look better and I get the correct tension without much trouble. So that is something for me to remember. If it does not work so well with one combination of thread, try another...
For this piece however I continued with the Bottomline...also a very good exercise for me personally to have something that is less than perfect. The feathers were a lot of fun to quilt. I felt in a pretty happy place with the machine...still going snail pace (how slow did I stitch on my DSM?) but getting into the rhythm of this machine. Stitching the feathers completely freehand was great. I used the backtrack method even though the bump back method would have probably been more appropriate, but I like backtracking...this worked very well for me at a slow speed and I was able to keep my feathers more or less consistent. Lesson learnt...the corners should really be marked in! I did them also freehand thinking that I could just have a little look of how I did them in the first corner but by the time you concentrate on your stitching, that reference point is gone and you are locked in fitting them into the space you are quilting. Let all of this go and was pretty happy with myself. Still looks quite respectable. Once I echo around that a few times the differences will not be that noticeable. Also did some in-lining in blue and practiced some speed. What a hoot! Made it up to 20% and had a laugh as I am very far away from being able to do them properly, even though the feathers are easier to quilt at that speed, i.e. they come out a bit smoother but my stitches were way too short at that speed for the time being. Will have to continue at my snail pace for a while.

From here the plan is to do a bit more filling in the center and to put some background quilting around the center and then I am thinking that I might put some piano keys as an outer border using my favourite ruler, the Line Grid ruler. I love this about wholecloth quilts...there is always something more you can do. However for this one that will then be the finish. I had ordered some fabric from the Fatquartershop for my next wholecloth which has already arrived, so I am already thinking about the next quilt.

Linking up to Let's Bee Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts.

Karin