Sewing Sunday Progress 2/28/10

I noticed I didn't post my sewing Sunday progress yet. And here it is Thursday already. Almost time for another sewing session!

My last sewing project was for our charity group from my guild. They put together kits and members then take them home to quilt, and bind these little quilts. Some are for shelters for children, and some were to go to an animal shelter. Not sure which one I was working on. LOL the pattern looked like a child's quilt, but the material was more like canvas than soft cotton. So I think it might be for the animal shelter. I will have to ask at the next meeting.

I am still working with my BSR as you can see by this photo. This foot is supposed to keep my stitches even as I quilt. I find that sometimes I still get wonky stitches, but for the most part they are pretty even no matter what my sewing speed is. That is good as I can floor the pedal and not worry about it.

What I had trouble with this time is moving the fabric. Since it was a canvas material both top and bottom it made this piece very stiff. It didn't glide nice at all. I had the extension table on the machine giving me more support which helped but still was difficult.

Anyway I did some more of my machine quilting practice on this piece. It was just a meandoring (which is a large variation of stippling) My husband calls this "the puzzle piece" design. Which is more fitting I think.

When I work with a quilt, I like to start in the middle and work towards the edges. This help with disbursing the bulk, and prevents some of the puckers. Because this was just one piece of fabric (no blocks or piecing lines) I divided it up into sections. Which is why you see the chalk lines in the photo. By dividing it up like this I can take small sections at a time and focus on them without worrying about the entire quilt. With an all over design like the one I did, I just worked the stops and starts to the meet at each section and as you can see they overlap the lines slightly too.  This kept it from looking too planned makes it hard to see the beginning or ending of a stitching line.

Over all I was pleased with the results of the quilting. The design was simple so I got into a nice rhythm and had it done in a couple of days. I did use up almost 2 bobbins of thread in the project. This is also something to be aware of when doing your quilting. My machine allows me to wind bobbins without un-threading the machine so it isn't a big deal if I run out. But if your machine requires you to un-thread, then you need to make sure you prepare several bobbins in advance.

Next Sunday I will be working on my Fibanocci quilt. I have 24 blocks pieced and need to cut and piece the last 12. So not sure if I will get to quilting this piece but I will show you some of the piecing progress if your are interested in coming back next week.