Tension Play

Today I allowed myself some time to just play!

It has been 2 years since I acquired the Sweet 16. After many trials and tribulations in the first few months, I have felt quite  comfortable with it over the last year. I did stick with my one thread rule for a while though. However, now slowly but surely, I am branching out in trying different threads and different thread combinations.

Today I trialed Superior Fantastico (wt 40/3)...I have got a beautifully variegated cone that was part of the box full of thread that Superior had thrown in when I purchased the machine. Still very impressed with their generosity.  Initially I left my So Fine bobbin thread (wt 50) in place to use up the thread that was left over from the Fox Quilt. When that was gone (worked fine), I took my bobbin out and adjusted it for a DecoBob Prefilled bobbin (80wt). Was curious on how that would go...

That worked really well, no problem at all. Spent a bit of time on concentrating on the speed and consistency and noticed that I need to slow down a bit. Have gotten into the habit of stitching faster than what I can control. The stitch quality was good...had a few little pokies here and there as I was mucking around with different tension settings, but really nothing to worry about. Really like that thread and will need to make a quilt to go with that (that could be good for the next Fox Quilt actually).

Then went back to Aurifil thread Mako 40/2, this time though stitching with the DecoBob bobbin thread...good combination! Actually I like the DecoBobs as they are wound so evenly...much better for your tension!

Continued to play and now went back to Aurifil 50/2 in the bobbin. Those are the bobbins that I wind myself...hardly any difference other than that I noticed fluctuations in the bobbin thread. On closer inspection I could actually feel that when I unwound the thread off the bobbin. Probably should pay a bit more attention to my bobbin winding...I suspect that I need to slow down the winding a bit to avoid the thread swinging around like it does at times. Winding it slower would probably also be better to avoid any stretching of the thread. Will adjust this next time I wind a bobbin.

Productive play!

Karin

Process

I made a start on my 1000 Pyramid quilt...

Once I basted this thing, I went over it with the basting stitch of the HQ Sweet 16 in a broad meander pattern.

You can see how I stuffed the whole quilt to the left of the machine...not rolled up, just bunched together in a big bundle. Once that was done, I went around the edges with the Versa Tool, still using the basting stitch

That is one thing I have used from the beginning with this machine, saving me heaps of time in terms of going around the edges of a quilt and I am used to doing this with the Versa Tool (has these little notches which I line up so that it stitches about 1/8in from the edge).

Then came the Baptist Fans...could not resist trying this, although I was still not convinced that this would work

Starting off...

...and having 2 rows done

Hard to see, even though I am using a 40/2 wt Aurifil thread. The scrappiness of the quilt just soaks it up. This is a good thing as consistency is a bit lacking, however overall it looks really good. I am making the fans slightly bigger, i.e. 5.75in instead of 5.5in (my largest ring gives me an 11in circle) so that the fans do not land on the seams. This is where the HQ Echo foot became really handy

This is the 1/2in Echo Foot. Looks a bit intimidating, but I must say I almost find it easier to stitch with this. Have not once trailed off and find it easy to work with. Took me a while to work out a workable process for quilting the fans, i.e.

- placed the quilt in a bundle to the left and then moved the bundle under the machine to the right onto the next table as I went along

- had a chair next to me with all the rulers and bitses, as the quilt kept pushing things off the table

- did temporary marks on the quilt of 5.75in width and height so that I would roughly stay on track

Overall, a half ring set would probably be better in terms of holding and aligning the rulers, however I am obviously not going to buy yet another ruler set just for this. I bought the circle set specifically to do circles of various diameters and this set is particularly handy as you can ride on the inside for some of the sizes. 

We will see how this progresses. For now, all is well...will be very interesting to see how I am going to manage this as I am getting more to the middle.

Karin