Mission Accomplished!

My machine has come back from service and I have finally been able to set myself up properly. Decided in the end to get the right extension flap for the table. Initially when I bought the machine I only got the extension to the left, obviously to save some money. However over time I was not unhappy with the arrangement but knew it could be better.
So this is what this looks like now

 Absolutely fabulous!!! Very happy with the set up. Gives me heaps more room on my cutting table and I know the space to the right will be heaven when quilting a bigger quilt. I thought it would be a hassle fitting the right flap on once the table was already set up, but it turned out super easy and quick. I also lifted my table up a bit after having done some more research on table heights. It now sits at 74cm.
In addition, I finally tackled the table surface and the annoying issue of the machine (needle plate) being slightly higher than the table insert . We are not talking by much, however it did create a minor annoying issue when using rulers. In certain positions your ruler would wobble a bit. I got replacement feet from the dealer. Basically they are like 'sticky dots' in 3 different sizes. You take the original feet off and attach these sticky dot feet to lower your machine.

Over the moon. I now have the overlay in perfect alignment with the needle plate. I cover the needle plate with the supreme slider and the ruler now sits nice and straight against the foot, no more wobble!
Will have to be more careful though...the technician lowered my foot a fraction, saying that it was a tad too high. I am currently looking at maybe getting the Clarity Ruler foot from Accents by Design for midarm machines, depending on whether the profile of that foot is a bit higher. Could get the Sure foot, but that would further restrict visibility.
The machine runs perfectly...obviously needed a spa treatment. Sounds completely different...

Now I only need to finish my quilt top to actually have something to quilt. Although I will have to also continue on my HQ group's challenge quilt...I am having a few weeks off work from next week, so hopefully I can get some things finished.

Karin

Challenge Quilt

My week of leave was spent progressing the challenge quilt from my local HQ group. This was epic...

Arrived at those sections that were meant to have pebbles in there. So, I pebbled for almost an entire week as there were 8 sections of it. Absolute torture and my shoulder did not like it at all. Had to put in frequent breaks so as to not damage my shoulder any further (apparently I have got a frozen shoulder with a good dose of bursitis on top of it and now I am patiently waiting for it to thaw out 😅). I then decided that the sashing was puffing out too much and so I put a diamond design in there with the HQ Skinny ruler. Once that was done I felt that it needed some dressing up and so I put the ribbon candy design in there...and so it goes on! I now am stitching the sashing down with some narrow lines around the diamonds and that is doing the trick of making it nice and flat.
I am absolutely quilting the 'snot' out of this quilt. So far I have gone through at least 5 -6 bobbins of thread. Good learning as usual as I noticed that a slightly different coloured bobbin thread (both Aurifil 50/2) required an adjustment of the bobbin tension. I am definitely learning more and more about the tension on the HQ Sweet 16.

Karin

Challenge Quilt

Continuing on my challenge quilt for the local HQ group run by Heather Hopkins

Am running behind and will have to do another 6 of those including filling in the background with some pebble work...

Pays to pay attention...promptly put my big pebbles in the wrong spot when starting off. Aren't they the worst thing to unpick!

This will look great when all finished. Undecided whether to put something in the sashing, will depend on how much time I have got left. This is supposed to be finished for the November meeting. I should really put some simple ruler design in there, the yellow 50/2 Aurifil thread looks nice on this quilt and would really stand out in the sashing. We shall see...

Karin

Handiquilter Ruler of the Month -

This ruler for this month is the Line Grid Ruler

Absolutely LOVE this ruler!

Finally the answer to my inability to do a grid just with a ruler. I have tried to do a grid with a straight ruler many times following the markings on the ruler. Without fail my grid ends up visibly inaccurate...just cannot align the ruler properly, it seems. So I was interested in this ruler and whether it would work better for me.

Definitely does!

I managed this simple grid (placed diagonally across) with relative ease and looking at it, it looks accurately spaced at 1/2in intervals and my lines are very straight. This is a bit exciting. While I will still do my larger grids with the stencil I have, for smaller sections this is ideal. The ruler is larger and you have a good grip on it when doing your lines...really like this one. Will try the different angles which are strategically placed across the ruler for ease of alignment next. 

Karin

New baby quilt

I have been steadily working away on 3 different quilts. Yes, why do one if you can do several at once!

Finished my baby quilt. This one is made out of charm squares and gave me a bit of a headache as I also had obtained a packet of 2 1/2in squares in the same range, somehow thinking that they would make up 4 1/2in squares. Well, they obviously don't and after a lot of internet surfing I finally came up with a combination of designs.

I found the idea with the stars in the center on Pinterest...Vanessa Christensen from the V and Co blog. She had the charm squares and stars arranged this way in a small quilt in some greenish tones. Very pretty. I added some additional borders to use up my 2 1/2in squares...EQ7 came again very handy as the math just did not add up and I needed to do some tweaking. To my big surprise this worked out very well. 

The quilt is by now spray basted and ready to go! Spray basting was definitely a first for me...not sure I like it...got it all over my feet and then spread it all over the floor...bit messy. But I have got something special in mind for this one and spray basting was the better option.

I am planning to do an edge to edge design on it on my HQ Sweet 16. We learned about this in the group I am attending and given that I am really bored with my allover designs this seemed a great option. I selected a design from the EQ Quilting Designs Add-on Program Volume 8 called 'Mini Moonflower Design'. Got very enthused about this and tried it out on a piece of white cotton

While not the most exciting design I thought that this was simple enough to trial on this quilt. I think it suits this little quilt.
In between of course, EQ8 came out and I had to shift my baby quilt from EQ7 to EQ8...today I spent some time on it trying to work out the size of the design and most importantly the placement. While this is all do-able, a bit of planning is a must, particularly as this design is straight across in very definite rows, so I had to make sure it does not sit on every seam line and looks well spread out while still appearing as a consistent overall E2E pattern. The motif consists of 2 rows of flowers and I ended up making this eventually 10in high. The next issue was to pay some attention to the edges and the spacing. EQ 8 was enormously helpful with this...

I worked in Zoom mode and placed my motif where I could effortlessly start...also used that little ruler in EQ8 to measure the approx. distance at points so I have an approximate for placement. I then exported the image using the 'Export Marquee Selection' and pasted it into a Word document, so I can have a look at it when placing the motif on the quilt.

So now I have got a picture of the top left corner and the top right as well as the bottom. Also took an image of the approximate spacing which will be about 1/2in.

Now it is just a matter of doing it! The motif will be stitched out using Golden Threads paper and I will most likely do this in sections. My only fear is that this might not end up straight across for some reason. Well, we shall see...


If this works out I might get some simple pantographs to expand my options a bit in terms of overall designs. Found some really nice ones on the Golden Threads web site. Lots of possibilities!

Karin

Charity Quilt

Since buying the new machine I am attending a monthly HQ group in the city. Last time a lady attended from the Orange Tree Quilters, an affiliated group of the Quilter's Guild of South Australia who donate quilts to children in need in the community.

She brought a whole stack of quilt tops that needed quilting...perfect opportunity to just practice as I have no quilt tops at the moment, so I took a small log cabin quilt.

This is where the HQ Sweet 16 shines...after some joining of the batting and basting I finished this little quilt top in a day.

Given that the log cabins were made out of colourful scraps, I chose the 'Ikea 'design that adorned the little white fleece blanket that we once purchased at Ikea...a bit of a mix between meandering and quilting loops

This worked really well and my tension issues seem to have largely disappeared. I used a soft yellow Aurifil 50/2 on the top and a beige Aurifil 50/2 thread on the bottom for the centre of the quilt and a pink Aurifil thread for the pink border.

...and here is the back

This was really useful as practice... as you can imagine none of those fabric pieces were of the same quality and gave me a really good idea of how my tension was performing. Happy to report that I had no major issues with the tension. Still some adjustment issues in terms of how to place my quilt and how to move it around...still find it confusing that I don't have to scrunch it up as I have done for years, so some of my stitching is more clumsy than usual. 

The border was a bit of an adventure. I don't think that was 100% cotton and my tension was ever so slightly out, i.e. had little pokies here and there on top, but I just did not worry about that and just quilted a loop design in there to finish it off.

Looks great and does the job.

Was again surprised by the efficiency of the machine. Did the meander first, then quilted in-the-ditch with one of the rulers around the pink border, then basted the slightly uneven border in place and finished it off with the loop design. This took me about 5 - 6 hours and it was done. Impressed with that.

Will continue on my ruler quilt next as I will be getting the next monthly ruler from the HQ Ruler of the Month club this weekend.

Karin