Poured Out 2 Quilt Done

 Whew! Done just in the nick of time!

This quilt is the second in a series inspired by the combination of my church's logo and the experiences and emotions during my husband's successful battle with cancer. Those negative words in the background threatened to choke the life right out of me. If it weren't for God's love and grace poured out over us over and over, I don't know how we would have gotten through it.

This was another hard quilt for me to do because of the emotions behind it, but it seems as if my best quilts have a spiritual theme. That's why I have entered it into the Sacred Threads Exhibit. It's the first time I have entered anything into a show, exhibit, or competition. I hope that others are touched by it. I do want to do a more cheerful quilt next! I also hope my pictures are good enough to get the quilt into the exhibit. You really can't see all the detail, especially the quilted words on the jug.

I learn so much from each quilt I do. This has machine applique and of course, a ton of free motion quilting! I need to learn more about when to cut the background out from behind applique. I was afraid to do it so I didn't. The black showed through a bit on the jug and the cascade of water, mostly just at the needle holes of the stitching. I also need to mark the edges of the quilt so my feather plumes don't get cut off by the binding.

Quilt Craziness

Perfectionism and procrastination in the same person can have pretty interesting results......

Two days left! Gotta quilt!

Designing a Quilt Catastrophy

Hello, my quilting friends!

This week and next will find me with little time to post as I am feverishly working on my quilt that I want to enter in the Sacred Threads Exhibit. It is my first major goal of this year and somehow life happened and the deadline for entries is nine days away. NINE!

Speaking of feverishly, we also have been hit by the stomach flu and three sick kids are keeping me busy with cleaning, laundry, cuddling, and caring for the poor sickies. And the hubby is out of town missing all the germy fun.

Source: freemotionquiltingadventures.blogspot.com via Amy on Pinterest

Source: le-dilemma.tumblr.com via Amy on Pinterest

So I hope to be back soon and share some pics of the finished quilt. How close have you cut it when there's a quilty deadline? Please share in the comments.

Free Motion Quilting Tip: 3 Ways to Know Your Machine Intimately

All weirdos who were drawn here by the the use of 'intimately' can scram. We're just talking quilting.

Knowing your machine is so very important to doing good quilting. It just isn't possible to quilt well without putting in the time to learn its foibles and strengths. Otherwise you'll spend so much time adjusting and tweaking and probably ripping out stitches that you might give up on quilting before you have a chance to get good at it.

1. Learn your machine's body- By this I mean what feet work best, when. How is it set up? Are you used to it being flush or set into a table? What setting works the best for whatever project and use? What accessories help you quilt the best? Feed dogs up or down? The best way to know this is to use that machine! Make some practice pieces, make the dog a quilt. Give yourself permission to fail in the pursuit of bettering your skills. 
2. Learn your machines likes and dislikes-How does it react to different threads or fabrics? How picky is it about the needle size or type when you use different fabrics. My machine for example, hates sewing in a straight backwards line, so I orient my work so there's always some side to side movement. Some folks have trouble quilting multiple layers of white-on-white or glitter frosted fabrics. (This may just be a need for a different needle.) At what speed does it have the best tension? Do some fabric/thread combinations change it sound? (We'll talk more about sound below) In my Christmas lights video, I talk about the different sound made when stitching on painted fabrics.
3. Learn what makes your machine hum- Or really, what makes your machine go ca-thunk, ca-thunk! Learn the sounds of something amiss. Recently, I was sewing along when something sounded wrong. Not a ca-chunk, but a little rattly sound. I've gotten to know my machine pretty well, so I knew something was amiss with the bobbin. I actually had a good idea exactly what it was and when I opened the bobbin case, I found I was right! 

As seen in the above picture, I found that my almost empty bobbin now had two ends. The end of thread had come loose from the hole where it had been wound. This allowed that end to interfere with the looping of the top thread and the usable part of the bobbin thread. The quilting still looked great, but it sounded wrong and the back was getting all loopy.(That's a genuine Janome Cherry Blossom Bobbin and I really love them.)

How well do you know your machine? Take it for a good test drive! How about the manual? If you have a Bernina, they've got the best educational materials out there for their machines. If you have a Janome, you might have to do a lot of figuring out on your own. Though they are getting better, I am told, with their higher end machines.

And now that we've talked so intimately, I've got a confession. The quilt on my bed came from Walmart. But I have non-quilt worthy traffic on my bed a lot!

I also have the world's largest cat. Or so the camera angle would lead you to believe. He also uses his claws to get up on the bed. My little guy is quilt-worthy, but his use of my bed is not. He's asleep due to the onset of stomach flu as we later found out. Maybe I'll get some quilting done this weekend. I certainly hope you will!