Janome Quilt Binder Set

I have tried out the Janome Quilt Binder Set recently, and I think this might be just the tool I need to get more of my sample quilts, as well as utility quilts bound up in a jiffy! I seem to stall out at the quilt binding stage, but with a little more practice, I'm going to get caught up.

 Now, there are a couple versions of this binding set for different machines. I had one that came with the existing inventory when we bought the shop. It was rather old and the packaging showed it. It's not a cheap tool, so I knew I'd have to play with it if I was going to prove that it was a worthwhile item. I set it aside and there it sat.

When I got it out finally, I discovered it was made for the bigger 7mm stitch width machines like the 6600P, MC7700, 11000, and the like. I didn't have any of those machines in the shop so I tried it on a smaller 7mm machine, the 4120. It fit that machine, but just barely. It was a little hard to maneuver.

But after just one test quilt, I went ahead and ordered the set that would fit on my 15000 and other Janome 8mm stitch width machines, like the 8900, 8200, 9400, etc.

Corners were easier than I expected. However, once I moved to a real quilt, I had trouble lining up the edges of the 1/2 inch binding to get it to stitch down perfectly, all in one pass. I do think trying to work under the small space of the 4120 was partly responsible.

I was able to stitch the entire binding down, including all four corners in 57 minutes! That didn't count for the final joining of ends, and I missed the binding in a few places, but overall, it's definitely worth doing it enough to perfect the technique!

I'll keep you posted on this tool and whether I think it's worth the investment.

Also I am happy to announce that the Ruler Work Upgrade is now available for the Janome 9400. The demand is great and it's getting into an out of stock item quickly. In fact, Janome is sending me a loaner machine so I can shoot videos of the ruler foot in action and it's been put on backorder! If you have the 9400 and want to do ruler work....talk to your dealer asap! Yes, it's totally worth it! The software update will make it impossible to clunk your ruler foot and your needle clamp together. Janome is the only machine on the market with such a foot and feature.

By the way, many of you have asked about the Glide thread that I use for so much of my quilting. I sell it online, but have yet to list it in as many colors as we actually have at Sew Simple of Lynchburg. But I an excited to share that we now carry the Angela Huffman Glide Thread Collection. Ten cones at a great price in a handy storage case. You can order it at Amy's Quilting Adventures.

Thread Giveaway and a Mystery

Happy weekend everybody!

Things have been hopping here at the shop and we now have some part time help to allow me to get more creative quilting and sewing stuff done in the studio and work done at the computer.  At the computer, it's mind-numbingly tedious except for when I can pop into social media land and write a blog post or something and can connect with people online. I did start free motion quilting a shop sample the other day, which made me very happy!

One of the things I had my main employee do lately is to fold fabric and make some order from some of my personal stash in the studio. We decided to pare down a bunch of stuff and since we are a retail shop, for the most part, if I don't sell it, I don't use it. Typically, that means I sell what I use because I find it's what works best.

But sometimes there's another reason why I don't use a perfectly good product. Maybe another nearby shop carries it, maybe there's competition from the maker of the product itself, or maybe I just don't have room for a product similar to what I already have.

All this to say, I have some ginormous cones of the thread that I will likely never use. Some I never actually used at all, but were given by other quilters or ordered on a whim a few years ago.

These are all polyester threads in a variety of sizes, great for quilting your quilts. The colors are a bit of a mishmash too. But they are free for the taking to one lucky reader.

Just fill out the simple form below and I will draw a random winner next Friday, March 2nd. I'll even ship it free.




 Also, we are participating in a special mystery quilt project with some other great shops across the US and Canada. If you're interested in the Brown Bag Mystery Quilt, and don't have a participating shop near you, you can purchase one of our bags and we'll mail you the clues! Check out our Brown Bag Mystery Quilt kits at Amy's Quilting Adventures.

Free Motion Quilting Troubleshooting: Bad Bobbin

When it comes to free motion quilting, there's a ton of variables to address before you get great results. Once you've mastered the basics of moving the quilt, hand speed, tension, and designs you might feel like you're good to go. That's when it can get a bit mysterious.

You've been having great results and then something happens. Check the threading, change the needle, tweak the tension. Most of the time it will straighten out. But occasionally you will be beset with a perplexing intermittent problem. Perfect stitches for good long run followed by 6 or so tangled stitches and then everything is fine again.

A tangled loop of top thread on the back of my quilt.

Check all the typical variables but it keeps happening. It could be a burr in the needle plate that only hits threads when the quilt moves a certain direction. Maybe a stray thread in the thread path. Maybe the quilt is hanging up on something. Sometimes it's a run of bad thread. It can be very perplexing.

For me, it can be a poorly wound bobbin. That's what I want to focus on in this post today.

Sad to say, it is usually operator error when it comes to my bobbins. I get in a rush and don't pay attention. That's what happened to me recently. Now, I only have Janome bobbins here. That's not always the case with a lot of sewists. We get a lot of machines into the shop that are loaded with very much the wrong bobbin. That can cause a bunch of trouble that is easily fixed. Check your bobbins.

The poorly wound bobbin above was the result of me being careless and leaving my machine cluttered with extra feet and needles in the path of the bobbin winding thread path. I love the storage on top of the machine, but I wasn't paying attention and the thread was rubbing on the top of a foot that was out of place.

I stripped off that last bit of thread and started sewing. All was well for about 30 minutes, then I heard a little snick sound. I've talked before about learning the sounds your machine makes. Everything looked fine so I kept stitching and listening. Snick. Check the stitching. Fine on the top but there was a tiny nest of thread on the back. Did a little pulling and confirmed it was top thread. That tells me it was a bobbin area issue.

Check the bobbin and found this knot in the middle of my bobbin with thread wrapped around it. I had my suspicions right away but did a strip search anyway. After pulling off several yards of thread, I realized that when I held the tail of the thread while the bobbin was winding, I held it too long and the thread doubled up on itself into this tangle. Then the rest of the bobbin thread covered it up.

There's a new feature on some of the newer Janomes that completely eliminates this operator error. It's a plate that looks like a plastic saw blade that the bobbin sits on as it is wound. You set the bobbin in place, wrap the thread around the bobbin a few times and then tuck the thread between any of the plastic fingers/teeth of the the plate and it cuts off the excess thread and holds the end while the thread is wound. I don't have this lovely feature.

My solution is just to be more mindful when I wind the bobbin! I ought to know it by now, but I forget from time to time in my hurry to wind the thing and get back to quilting. Any snags, knots, and other things that cause the bobbin to go bad, will cause you grief.

In most cases, a poor bobbin will give you tension issues. In this case, the knot was keeping the thread from unwinding until it was tugged enough by the top thread, which would cause the top thread to get pulled too deep into the machine and make the hook grab it and make a nice nest.

I'm not a bird, I want no nests on my quilts!

So there's one of those things that can give you mystery issues when quilting. What's an issue you found that caused you such intermittent problems that you've figured out?

Free Motion Quilting: Trouble Shooting

Today, I made sure to prioritize my quilting to be done early in the day instead of letting everything else push it to the side. So proud of myself too for putting this project at the top of my list of things to do. I should knock out this section quickly....stitching along and....

Snarly messes of top thread. Ugh.

I got stubborn and kept stitching here and it went back to good stitches!

I have this issue every once in a while. Still haven't solved it. Can't get the machine to do it when I take it to the dealer (had the same issue on my old machine too) and my hubby who is pretty knowledgeable when it comes to sewing machines can't quite figure it out either.

Can you see the loop of top thread going around the bobbin thread?

I have two theories:

1. The needle is piercing the 'working' thread as the stitch is being formed. The working thread is the length of thread that is pulled around the bobbin case with each thread. Any one point on the thread gets pulled down into the bobbin case many times before finally laid down as a stitch. I try to avoid this by not stitching directly backward (pulling quilt towards myself). But this usually results in broken thread.
2. The plies of top thread for some reason are coming apart and the hook is grabbing only part of the thread to form a stitch. I used to think this was only with a thick thread and maybe my hook was damaged or just a tiny bit out of time. But, no damage, and this issue comes and goes with no rhyme or reason and with different threads.

It's very annoying. Most of the time, the thread doesn't break. The stitches look awful for a bit and will most of the time straighten itself out and I could keep stitching. In fact, I even shot a video of this for you, but Youtube is loading slow for me tonight. This is the same thread and quilt that I've been quilting on with no issues for quite some time.

After shooting the video, I turned my machine off and did something else for an hour or so. When I started stitching again, there was absolutely no issues. Go figure.

Using quality polyester thread- a little slippery, maybe a thread net would help. I even spooled off several meters in case the thread was defective. Threaded properly, tension good in between episodes, and I'm experienced enough to not have issues to to jerky hands. Good needle, etc.

Just goes to show that even when you're an experienced quilter, things still go wrong now and then. So if you are just starting, don't give up when having trouble. Change a setting, thread, needle, tension, foot height, etc. and see if that helps. But sometimes this free motion quilting is just so different from the sewing that these machines were designed to do, that you might have occasional mystery issues.

Show Shopping

I've been home a full week now since my return from the American Quilter's Society (AQS) Show in Lancaster, PA. My house is pretty much back to normal and life resumes its daily routine of never enough time and too much mess life with little kids. My sewing room is not entirely back to normal.

By "normal" in both instances above, do not read that as neat and tidy. I have learned to temper my creativity with some organization and good habits, but the rest of my family? No. Especially the only other female in the house who has mastered the creative chaos process. Her creative vision seems to require cutting up tons of paper, fabric, string, yarn etc.

But today I thought I'd share my shopping haul from the show. Compared to many shopping trips, this is pretty small. This may be due to having completed my business taxes prior to heading out to the show.

The first thing to buy was batting from Hobb's. Three queen-sized batts were purchased, one 80/20 cotton/poly blend and my new favorite batting- their new cotton and wool blend, Nice stuff! No picture as batting is fairly unexciting to photograph.

The next thing on my shopping list was thread. Now there was a ton of thread for sale at the show, but when faced with a huge selection, my brain just can't make up its mind. Since I couldn't buy it all, I bought what was new to me that I already knew I wanted to try.

The Top Anchor Quilting Tools booth was right next to the YLI booth. The folks there were such good neighbors. Jim saw me eyeing the spools of braid. I explained that I was wondering if it was big enough to use for free motion couching or small enough for bobbin work. The sweet man gave me the two spools shown above! I also bought a ginormous cone of their #40 poly thread that is similar to Glide and two small spools of grey Silk Sparkle, which is silk thread combined with a silver metallic.

Then I had to try some thread from WonderFil. There was a huge selection and again, I just couldn't decide. (Plus I had to hurry back to the booth- no slow shopping stroll here.) I snagged a pack of rayon cord, perfect for bobbin work. (I had bobbin work on the brain since I used it for the Top Anchor banner.) I also picked up a cone of  InvisaFil, a #100 poly thread. So thin and fine! I had heard a few longarmers talk of using it, so I thought I'd check it out.

Then I bought two half yard pieces of unique hand dyed fabrics. Both will end up as table runners and/or teaching samples. The bottom one tells me it wants some straight line ruler work done Zentangle style.

The last stop was the sew Batik booth. I love their gradations line of solid batiks. It was easy to pick up these two and hard to say no to the others. I wanted to pick up some of their rayon batik for a tunic for myself, but since I haven't done anything with the last piece I bought from them, I refrained.

That's it! Positively restrained in my shopping, wasn't I? How about you? Do you go crazy when you get to a big show like this? Do you have a list and stick to it? Are you like me and get overwhelmed with choices? Share in the comments.

Showing off my purchases reminds me of the Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival three years ago when I bought the Janome Frame Quilting Foot Set. I had no idea if I could use it on my stationary machine with my convertible FMQ foot set, but I was going to try it. I'm so glad I did!

I also want to welcome new readers who found the blog after seeing me at the show. Hi!

A final parting note to let you know that Craftsy is having a sale on fabric and kits right now. Use the link to them on the right sidebar to take a look.

Free Motion Ruler Work: Midnight Snowflakes

I am having a great time with my new Janome 8200 and quilting with rulers. This machine is so quiet, plus the visibility and ability to work behind the foot with standard 1/4 inch thick rulers is so much improved over my 6600.

Not that the Janome 6600 isn't a great machine, it's only when it came to ruler work behind the foot that I had any issues. In fact, the 6600 is no longer mine. It sold yesterday at the shop. I showed it the day before to a young mother and I hope it was her husband who returned the next day and bought it for his wife. I didn't get her name, but I gave her my card so I'd love to hear from her. (I want to let her know that there are some customized settings on the machine that I should have returned to the defaults before it sold.)
 

Isn't this a cool batik to free motion quilt?

I'm working feverishly on a sample quilt for the Top Anchor Quiting Tools both at the Lancaster AQS show in less than two weeks. All of these snow days have slowed my quilting down. The kids have been having plenty of fun; sledding and drinking hot chocolate. I've been doing more laundry than ever since giving up cloth diapers a few years ago.

The batik motifs are based on 8 points and most of the rulers I'm using are based on 6 points, so it doesn't line up well, but I think it's still pretty! You can see the anchor post in the middle of this design.

For the ruler work motifs on this quilt, I'm using Yenmet Metallic thread. It's a blend of turquoise blue thread and silver metallic. It's working beautifully! I'm using a 90/14 universal needle in the machine and Glide thread in the bobbin. I did take the tension off of auto so I could use a very low tension on the top.

I'll work on getting a few in process shots soon, maybe even a video if I can get the kids to be quiet long enough.

What have you been quilting on? Are you doing any ruler work? Anybody else longing for spring like I am?

8 Free Motion Quilting Tips for Confident Beginners

It's said over and over again, practice is important when it comes to free motion quilting. This implies we make a bunch of practice pieces, but really, how long does it take before we're sick of making hot pads and place mats?

Then there's a project we just need to get done and fast. Perfect for a little machine quilting. Maybe it's that baby quilt that needs to be made this weekend. We know it doesn't have to be perfect so we decide we're moving on from those practice pieces.

So here's 8 tips to make those first free motion quilted projects look their best:

First, the set-up: Make sure you've got a set-up that will set you up for success. A smooth large workspace, preferably with your machine set into a table, cabinet, or large extension table. A chair at a comfortable height to your sewing surface. Quilting gloves or some other grip method. (See my How to Free Motion Quilt Series: The Set Up) Decent lighting, quality thread and a new needle will help get you off to a good start.

None of these battings are junk, but they are certainly thin. The top batting is my favorite 80/20 blend.

Batting: Use a medium thick batting. Nothing too poofy, but a little more room for less than perfect tension to hide within its thickness. A good quality medium thickness won't tend to flag up the needle or get poked down into the bobbin area if you don't have a straight stitch needle plate. My favorite batting is an 80/20 blend.

Thread: Choose a polyester thread of high quality. I know, I know, don't send me hate mail if you're a cotton purist. (Use some Aurifil if you can't stand the poly.) But a good 40 weight poly thread is probably the easiest thread to free motion quilt with. It's strong and smooth too, so it's less likely to break or fray.

Thread color: Use thread that matches or blends with the fabrics of the top. If you decide to use a variegated thread (and I don't recommend it, no matter how pretty it looks on the spool or how well it harmonizes with your top.), choose a quilting design without backtracking.

See how the variegated thread looks when back tracking? The top fabric here is black (despite it's appearance in this pic) and I used black thread in the bobbin.

Match your thread: Using matching top and bottom thread can hide minor tension issues. As a beginner, you will have tension issues that pop up in certain curves due to changes in hand motions or speed. Most quilters use the same color (or close to it) in the top and bobbin. If you decided to use a variegated thread on top, use a solid color in the bobbin that blends with the top, with the top thread, and the back.

See how much harder it is to see the quilting on the prints?

Backing: Having done all the above, use a backing that is a busy print or matches the thread used. You will see the texture the quilting provides, but not focus on individual lines of stitches. I still forget this tip all the time, tending to think, "what fabrics can I use up on this backing without using my best fabrics?"

A light solid backing with brightly colored thread will show off every bobble!

Relax: Take frequent breaks to keep from getting too tense. No one can quilt well when tense. The shoulders will sneak up to the ears and the back will curve forward. It's not good for your quilting and it's certainly not good for your body.

Finally, don't judge your quilting harshly while sitting at the machine. Take it out and spread it on a bed or a table and look with your eyes at 3 feet minimum from the project.

I hope you find these tips useful as you begin to quilt on your quilts. Don't forget to keep practicing on things that don't matter as much. This skill takes a lot of practice and there are so many variables to adjust on each project. With some care and the tips above you can go ahead and quilt your quilts before you are overrun with hot pads and place mats!

And don't worry, we all have those first quilts we tried our FMQ on before we really should have. They still warm the heart and build your skill.

Embroidered and Quilted Table Runner

I finished this table runner today. I used a Janome MC15000, at Sew Simple where I work, to embroider the blocks. The blocks themselves are all the same embroidery design done four times around a center point. This was pretty easy and fun to do. Only the embroidery was done on the 15000, everything else was done on my Janome 6600P.

I thought the embroidery needed a frame around it and I needed to free motion quilt between the individual motifs that made up each block. I had already quilted around the embroidery. So out came my trusty Mark B Gone pen. The area between blocks was very tiny, but something needed to be quilted in there. A design bases on circles fitted just right and was easy to draw using the embroidery as a guideline.

I've never had issues with the blue pen as long as I soak the piece to remove it. Spraying with water can sometimes do the trick, but it tends to reappear on the bottom of the piece. There are a few eraser products for this marker that work great too. I am always careful to not iron over the marks. My favorite is the air erasable pen, but I knew I needed more time before my marks disappeared. My go-to marking pen (Dritz Dual Purpose Marking Pen) actually has both of these markers together.

All done and bound. I chose to finish the binding by machine and zig zagged some Superior Thread's Razzle Dazzle along the edge of the binding to secure it.

 The back of a well-quilted piece is always fabulous. Even though I used white thread top and bottom, it still looks good on the back. I wished I had used a light turquoise thread though. But I did stitch with my Aurifil again and I think it's now my favorite cotton thread.

A detail shot of the back to show what happens when you use your machine's automatic thread cutter function. Half inch thread tails are left. This wasn't an issue with this piece since there were just a few to trim, but I wouldn't want to do this for a large quilt and then go hunting little thread tails to trim. But using the cutter does save me some time, so I use it sometimes.

Here I am using my machine's H foot to couch this sparkly thread. Worked great! See that there's no pins holding the binding in place? Glue. Yep. If it's good enough for Sharon Schamber, it certainly good enough for me. I use Roxanne Glue Baste It . I bought it for the applicator with the intent to use it for my Elmer's washable glue, but I figure I might as well use Roxanne's up first.

Love using this product! The trick is to press the area being glued with a hot iron and it dries in a second. It holds securely, but it can be 'popped' loose if you need to re-position it or to open a glued seam. Washes right out too.

This is the first time I used couching in conjunction with stitching a binding down. I think I like it.

Tomorrow I go to work in the shop and I'm looking forward to displaying this somewhere there.

Have you used any of these products or techniques in your work? Share in the comments.

Ten Tips to Solve Breaking Threads

Lois left a comment about having intermittent breaking of her top thread while free motion quilting on a recent post. I answered her in the comments, but wrote a good sized equivalent of a blog post. I figured I might as well re-post it for you.

So, here's my checklist for thread breaking with a few additions:

1) Quality thread? Not too old? Tip: if your spool looks like the above, is Styrofoam, or gilded plastic, it's old! Not rayon (Rayon is a beautiful thread, but it takes gentle treatment and does break frequently).

2)Check your needle for snags, sized appropriately, etc. Some threads do better with a top stitch or metallic needle. Sometimes you can get a bum needle. But sometimes the bigger eye of a topstitch needle can cause sloppy stitch formation.

3) Check your stitchplate where the thread goes into the machine to form a stitch. Any snags or rough spots? Since you're going in all directions, the thread can contact a rough spot that hadn't been an issue with regular stitching.

4)Is it directional? Only happen as you stitch backwards? Happens to me sometimes. The needle can actually pierce the working thread (thread takes many passes through the machine before it is finally made into a single stitch, piercing it will break that working thread pretty quickly. Try to limit how much you stitch directly backwards, especially as that's where the needle is most prone to flexing.

5) Thicker, rougher threads, even some quality cottons can be 'grabby' and shred if there's a lot of stitching on top of stitching (backtracking or really dense designs).

6) Sometimes it can be a timing issue- if the top thread seems to be getting split and parts are worked into a few different stitches while a ply isn't getting stitched. The hook is splitting the thread as it's being formed. Tends to happen on thicker threads or lower ply thread (2 ply vs. 3 ply).

7) Check the upper thread path. Sometimes a slippery thread can flip itself around something as you stitch, work itself out of the take up lever, etc.

8) This point wasn't in my original response. Are you also having tension issues? A too tight top tension can sometimes cause the thread to break.

9) Another tip that wasn't included earlier: Check your bobbin case for nicks, scratches, rough spots too. The top thread has to pass around the case in order to form a stitch, so it's got to be smooth and undamaged.

10) My last tip, and another one not included in my comment, is to check how the thread is unwinding from the spool. If it is a straight-wound spool, it may not like the extra twist it is being given by spooling the thread off the top. If it is a slippery thread, it may be getting tangled around the spool pin and/or benefit from a thread net.


I also want to include a few more tips gleaned from working at my Janome dealer's shop part-time.

Make sure you are using the proper bobbin for your machine! You would be amazed at how many machines we see whose main issue is the wrong bobbin! It's easy to grab the wrong bobbin, especially at a big-box store's sewing section or if you have had multiple machines. The machines may move on, but the accessories and bobbins tend to stay.

I also recommend getting genuine bobbins from your machine's manufacturer. Ask your dealer if the bobbins you are being sold for your machine came from the manufacturer or if they are generics that fit your machine. There are generic bobbins out there with the same dimensions (or "close-enough"), but I always have less trouble with my Janome bobbins in my Janome machine. I also like buying the colored bobbins from Janome so I can separate the thread typed in my bobbins. I recently got blue bobbins and they also have pink ones. Take it from me, I buy generic everything most of the time, but not bobbins.

Don't forget to raise your presser foot when threading your machine, so that the thread slides into the tension disks properly. I also raise my presser foot first when I am changing my top tension.

If you have a drop-in bobbin machine, have you ever noticed that even when the case is correctly seated, there's a little bit of wiggle room? It's supposed to be there! That bit of play allows the top thread to pass around it as the stitch is formed. As you stitch, if you hear the bobbin rattle, you might have something impeding the threads path around the bobbin case. Check it for lint or debris build up. I hear this sometimes when my bobbin is running low, the tail end of the bobbin thread has come unwound a bit and is interfering with the stitch formation. If a long enough of it comes unwound, it will join the top thread in making the stitch and *whammo* the bobbin with be tied in place.

Lastly, my experience has taught me that there will always be a few thread breaks occasionally. Even a long armer will have breaks occasionally. But if it's happening after stitching no more than 5 feet or so, there's probably something you can do to fix it.

Tips for Using Monofilament

In my post "Quilting Away!" last week, I was using monofilament thread for some free motion quilting stitch-in-the-ditch (SID), also known as invisible thread. Afterwards, I had a few folks ask questions about this thread. So today I'll give you my best tips for using this handy, yet sometimes finicky thread.

First of all, today's monofilament thread is not the fishing line-like product of years ago. It is super thin and flexible. Monofilament thread comes in two compositions: nylon and polyester. I haven't used any nylon monofilament since those fishing line days, but I hear it's just as good as the poly, though a bit less heat tolerant so it may need a cooler iron. I use the polyester version and have been using Sulky's brand.

Can you see it? Every seam has been stitched.

I would like to compare a few other brands, but this stuff is so thin it lasts a very long time. Most makers carry it in clear and a darker version, usually referred to as "smoke". This is good when using it on darker colors. Some monofilament threads have more shine than others and that can detract from the camouflage effect of this clear thread. I hear YLI's version and Superior Thread's Monopoly are pretty popular.

The biggest tip is to feed the thread off the spool without twisting. This means it needs to come off of the side of the spool when straight wound. My Janome 6600 has a great set up for spools fed off the top for cross wound and less finicky threads. But I have to be creative to get a spool to feed off the side. I use a spool cap upside down close to the top of the spool pin and then skip the high thread thingy, then thread the rest as usual. You can see this better in the first picture of this post. For most machines, use the vertical spool pin and make sure the spool unwinds freely.

The second tip is to use a very low tension with this thread. It is stretchy and tends to 'create' extra tension via the stretch. I use a .75 to 2 tension on my machine, though each machine is different. Too high tension will result in the bobbin thread popping to the top (you may actually see the thread coming up out of the hole when the stitch forms!) and/or break the invisible thread

Tying off- The thicker fishing line version of this thread from days gone by was a total bear to knot. The newer threads are much easier to tie off or knot, but they still have a tendency to come untied or have ends pop out from the project. I almost always knot these thread ends by stitching in one place and then burying the ends very well.

Needles- I prefer to use a smaller needle with this type of thread, usually an embroidery needle, size 75/10. The thread is very fine, so you don't need a huge needle and resulting needle hole unless the fabric of the project requires a heavy needle.

In the bobbin- For quilting with monofilament thread, a fine thread in the bobbin is a good choice. I use monofilament in both the top and bottom when I finish a binding by machine and have not had to change my bobbin tension at all. Though it usually requires a top tension of less than one on my machine.

I hope you find these tips useful. Monofilament is a great thread for certain situations, especially when there are multiple colors of fabric and you don't want to keep changing thread colors.

Once I came out of the house, frustrated, to tell my husband that I couldn't find my invisible thread. Our neighbor, to whom the hubby was speaking, found it quite funny!

How to Knot and Bury Thread Ends When Quilting: Video

Here's a video of how I bury thread ends at the beginning or end of a line of stitching. I know one thing I do differently from other videos I've seen on knotting is where I tie my knot. I like to do it about 1/2 inch away from my top instead of right at the surface. It works for me.

And below is what this area looked like before I started burying ends.

When doing an intricate bit of stitching with a lot of starts and stops, I like to minimize how many times I have to cut thread and start over. I will lift the needle out at the end of a line of stitching, and using my knee lift, raise the presser foot and move to an area out of the way of more stitching. Then I take a single stitch and then move to the next area of stitching, leaving a 'V' of thread. This allows me to move to a new area and still keep the start and stop tails of thread out of the way.

When my quilt starts to look like the first picture, above, with threads all over the place, it's time to take care of all the knotting and burying. As I show in the picture below, I pull on that 'V' of thread where I took the single stitch and pull the bobbin thread up to the top. (The black thread on my finger is the bobbin thread.)

Then I cut the bobbin thread and proceed to tie the ends as shown in the video. By keeping those threads intact and located in an area I'm not currently stitching in, I keep from accidentally sewing over the bobbin thread tails while I 'save' the knotting and burying for later.

Now, I am off to quilt some more on this project. I swear the next project I do will be more cheerful!

Bobbin Holders

I'd love to give credit to whomever came up with this brilliant idea I found on Pinterest, but if you follow the link back, it appears to have been pinned from google.com instead of the original source. Hopefully, I can do a little digging and find it. It is however a great idea! Edited to add: looks like the idea may have come from here, but I have yet to find the actual picture/post.

These are those toe separator thingies for pedicures! They are made of foam so you could probably use them as a pin cushion in a pinch. I think these would be great for when you are traveling with your machine.

Source: google.com via Anna on Pinterest

Remember, if you are pinning pictures, do it from the original site, not an index page or the main page of a blog. As the content of these index and/or main pages' content changes, the link becomes useless.

Free Motion Quilting a Sample for a New Project

I have started preliminary work on my new version of my Poured Out quilt. The main background is black sateen upon which I will quilt a bunch of negative words and choking, evil, thorny branches. Yep, this is not a 'pretty' design.

But what I really wanted to share with you is how I made a test sample before working on the real quilt. Test samples help not only with tension issues, but also with thread selection, and in this case, design elements too.

I was really surprised at how well the camera showed the threads on the black fabric! I needed to decide what colors were going to work best of this quilt for the dense machine quilting. I also wanted to see how well the words and thorny vines would show up with the machine faux trapunto. See the basting pin on the right side? Tiny, dense quilting. I try to work a little bigger, but that's what my hands like to do.

I used the same black sateen that I will use for the quilt and 2 battings; Quilters' Dream 100% poly and their Dream Wool also. Talk about serious puff! I think I'll expand on the vines and words to take advantage of the trapunto effect.

It was pretty easy to decide that black Isacord thread on the sateen was too boring and didn't show the design enough, even with the sheen of the sateen and the fabulous texture. Same with some dark blue threads. One variegated thread showed promise, but I wanted to try some others since thread colors look so different stitched out on fabric than they do on the spool. Plus I would have to order more of it, since I only had one spool. Three of the variegated threads were seen too bright on the black, though they were lovely. One was too purple to play nicely with the bottom blue water portion of the quilt.

That left two to decide between. Of course it had to be the one that will have me placing an order with Superior Threads today for a large cone of the Rainbows poly, Midnight Shadows. I think the name is fitting for this quilt too. I might use one of the dark blues a bit too, to help rest the eye from all the variegated thread. It's interesting how if you step back to about 8 feet away from this sample, how it all looks nearly black but there are hints of color that beckon you to look closer.

I am so glad I tested my threads! I think a lot of quilting issues get resolved by testing your thread on the same fabric and batting as you will be using on your actual quilt. Usually I just use the edge of the batting with a scrap of top fabric alongside my quilts.

I hope you have been playing with your threads and quilting too during my absence here. I have gotten obsessed with a secret project and have neglected my blog, my quilting, and some other life stuff. I wish I could say it's a book deal or something really promising, but alas....

Quilting with Isacord Thread

There's the baby Isacord and Big Mama Isacord!

I like using Isacord thread for a lot of my free motion quilting:

1. It's pretty cheap inexpensive. And I can get it somewhat locally.
2. It's shiny and I love for my stitching to shine.
3. As a polyester thread, it has no lint.
4. It gives me very little trouble. What trouble I do have is really my machine's fault and happens when I do a bunch of 'backwards' stitching. (Pulling the quilt towards me)
5. There are a ton of colors and I can get it on large or jumbo big mama spools.

I usually get my Isacord thread at a shop in the bigger city nearby, about 40 minutes away, that sells Berninas and embroidery stuff. They have a huge selection of colors in the 1000M cones and they cost $5.80.

But there's a beautiful new quilt shop about 50 minutes away that has a lot of yummy fabric, nice people and while their thread selection is pretty limited, the owner also does custom machine embroidery. She uses the huge 5000M cones and if she has a color that I want that is still in the wrapper, she will sell it to me at a great price of  $13.00! Yippee! I won't need this color green for a loooong time!

Quilt Show Shopping

Here are some pics from the quilt show. There were many vendors there and there was a huge quilter's shopping frenzy going on. Since this is the biggest show in the area, it is not surprising that the vendor area was packed. According to the "Quilting in America 2010" survey, quilting is a $3.58 billion dollar industry, with your average "dedicated" quilter spending $2442 annually on their hobby!

I am definitely a dedicated quilter but I guess I'm not your average one as recorded by this survey. The average dedicated quilter has a household income of $91,000, and we are far short of this number! Not that I will dispute that my purchases might be less than their average, but let's not focus on that number. I was just thrilled to be able to go to the show, and those expenses were plenty so I couldn't spend much money and I wanted to be very careful with what I bought.

So I knew I was in trouble when I found the book booth by Dover! Books are so seductive! I am trying not to buy many books now because I read them once, put them on a shelf and that's it. Some get thumbed through occasionally, but I am not a project girl, making the projects in the book. I just want to learn about the technique and be inspired. I bought three, but one of them was a children's picture book for my daughter, so that doesn't count. :-)

I bought "Amazing Ways to use Circles and Rays" by Renae Haddadin and "Custom Curves" by Karen McTavish, my favorite quilter with dreadlocks (OK, maybe the only quilter with dreads)

Mmmmmm, books!

Then there was Sue Pelland's booth. She's the creator of the Leaves Galore templates. I already have her 'norme' sized template/ruler and I've used it mostly for marking feather spines for quilting, but I need to try one of her quilt ideas. I bought a large package of Misty Fuse from her.

Then there was the booth that I could have done some serious damage at, but it was very crowded and my mantra at the time was "Use what you have". I did buy some So Fine 50wt thread to try with my King Tut and my So Fine 30wt threads. (More on that in another post.)

The only fabric I bought came from the Dippy Dyes booth by Lisa White Reber. She had some lovely hand dyes and I was on a search for some mandala style dyed fabric for some wholecloth quilting.

And then I tried the Sweet 16 Sit Down. Not impressed. First of all the tension was all messed up. The dealer then blamed it on some competing dealer coming by and turning the tension knob. The blaming annoyed me. Then they had no quilting gloves. I am very dependent on my Machingers. They had a hoop thing, but without gloves, it was hard to move their sandwich. And I found the end-on orientation disorienting. Something I could get used to I'm sure.

But then there was George. Sigh. They had machingers and Angela, the rep, was someone I was somewhat familiar with from MQR so she wasn't a complete stranger. I'm a bit timid and I hate crowds (I think I define crowds as more than 3 people in a grocery store aisle.) There was absolutely no problem with this machine! The table was just the right size to fit in the family playroom, which is my new sewing space. Too bad I can't afford it, nor justify the expense even if I could.

Janome (or anyother sewing machine company) you really need to make a machine like your straight stitch only machine 1600, but with an 11 inch throat and easily dropped feed dogs for under $1000 and good visibility and you would sell it like hotcakes!

Speaking of Janome, I stopped by their booth and picked up 2 new feet for my convertible free motion foot. They're actually for the 1600 on a frame, but I thought I'd try the one made for ruler work anyway. I've heard that some sit-down machine quilters can hold a ruler and move the sandwich. Let's see if I can be that dextrous. The other foot is useless to me, but they were sold in a set. It is just an open toe foot that faces the end of the machine for using your DSM on a frame. I also stopped in a Quilter's Rule and picked up a small long arm ruler to use with the new foot. I chose a small double S curve so I could try out some curved cross hatching as described in the Karen McTavish book.

And finally, I bought a few cones of Floriani Thread. It's a polyester 40wt thread similar to Isacord but shinier and less expensive. I thought it was worth a try. I also bought the all-important thread color card so I can order more if I like it.

Wow! I took me an hour and a half to write this post. Geesh. Gotta go.