u/vexedthespian

(Not so much a question, as it is more of an answer, and I’m making this post for the newbies out there to learn from my error)

So I have a cat, and he is a curious guy in a way that’s super frustrating, and at some point I decided “spool nets 24/7!”

And it never occurred to me that this coincided with finding that I had to turn my tension down to 1, or even close to zero (I was worried my knob was going to come off)

Anyways, the piece I’m on, has some variance in block size plan vs execution, and I’ve been maybe stretching it during piecing groups of blocks together (I know, shame) (it’s THOUSANDS of half inch squares so I’m not in a position to take a half hours getting each piece perfect. Anyway, I wanted to get red thread to match so the seams wouldn’t be as obvious when I had to… force it.)(because there were some that maybe were pulled to fit…)

WHICH BRINGS ME TO TODAY.

New cone of thread, new spool net, rethread, and man… there’s just some more resistance…

And I’m dialing down upper tension, and tightening my bobbin tension and it isn’t enough…

And then I think “I’m going to take the spool net off.”

The first pass through is a salad of thread on the bottom side because that spool net was creating so much tension on the top.

And now I feel a tad silly, but Smort for finally figuring it out.

Anyway, I have loads of prep tonight for delivering to the state fair tomorrow (Nebraska) so naturally I am posting to reddit instead of doing that…

/but I really am going to go do that now…

Title says it all.

I was on the hunt for a red 118” wide back, and thought I had landed on this Flame Peony Paradise by Henry Glass.

At $27 a yard… and requiring 3.5, I was going to be getting in store…

I don’t know if it was concept art vs actual product, or if AI has anything to do with it, but yikes….

Anyways, I’m prob not going to finish this until June, so I have time to find the right one.

Spent about 8 hours on this, sewed 3 pairs of rows together, seam ripped 2 of them, but I have to be to work in 6 hours, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

I was thrilled to enter my first county fair this year after the encouragement of a coworker last summer.

Upon sharing the pic of the exhibit card to my wife, she was like “that’s great! Did you also get a ribbon?”

I replied “heck no, those are for the top three in the entire show. This was simply “best in class.”

To which she followed up with “oh? And how many others were in your class?”

I explained “It isn’t important that there only were two entries in my class, what’s important was that I was able to share my voice in this community to an entire audience of folks taking refuge in the only air conditioned building in our entire county fair.”

Anyways, it was a lot of fun, I’ll drop the best in show below, (It would feels weird posting theirs next to mine in the original)

(I made a longer post about this quilt in December)

So I wasn’t planning on sharing a kit, but this was so fun and wanted to share.

(Also, Marvin asked me to respect his right to online anonymity, so he also got a sticker on his face. But he helped a lot with loading onto the frame. No matter what I was trying to do, he was RIGHT there, seeing if there was anything he could do, and I kept telling him “um, can you back up a little?”)

Anyway, after my last loop de loop which I worked on conceptually or test wise for 11 months I was looking for an easy mindless piece, and this came together remarkably fast.

[Too fast in fact, I don’t need to tell y’all how expensive this hobby can be, so when something costs $226.57 (fabric kit, backing and batting) , I can justify it with “yeah, but it’ll take several weeks.”](side note, I kinda want to take away the stigma of being specific about price, so that anyone coming across this community can be like “oh… that IS a lot, and be able to make informed decisions one where to make their own purchases in terms of quilt shop v Walmart/hobbylobby)(rip Joann)

Anyway the top was done in 3 days of ironing cutting and piecing. This was also the time I was looking at a frame on fb marketplace …$200! (It was a 10 ft grace pinnacle frame from many years ago and it’s like I have a brand new frame without dropping three grand!)

Which then showed the only shortcoming of my Bernette 08 which is that there is literally no option for a longer foot pedal or hand control accessory. (I could have managed the 9” throat being sorta short for a frame.)

Anyway, I’ve been pretty fortunate latterly and I was in a position to get a display model of the Grace Little Rebel for the frame for far cheaper than box price.

(My review of that is “it does exactly what I want it to do on the frame, but if I was using it for piecing, the lack of knee lift and auto thread cutter makes me realize how spoiled I am with my Bernette 08, but it was really cool and insanely cheap compared to other machines with built in stitch regulation)(this is the only exposure I have to stitch regulators, so don’t consider this a seasoned review)

Back to quilt making: once I had my “new machine” and my “not gonna pretend it’s new but does exactly what it did 20 years ago when it was new” I was off.

I did a simple meander for my first time. Still got some long stiches from going a biiit too fast.

And also, I managed to load my backing fabric onto the gram without noticing the tag was still on it (ask me how I know for a FACT I got 2.25 yards of wide back)(🙄🤣)

The backing was originally for the previous loop de loop, but my daughter, when given the choice of “this colorway, or dimpled pink minky backing like the one I made you when you were 8”, opted for the dimpled, so I had this backing which I think went really well.

She thinks that it was really nice that I managed to make a pride quilt before June ended.

Anyway, while I was waiting for that machine to come, I started another project that I describe as “hopefully done in time for Christmas.” Which I am going to go back to cutting pieces for. (Actually another kit, this one being the Jane Austin coverlet that came out a few years back.)

Have a great one y’all, I’m in a heat warning until Tuesday night.

Just posted this on the r/quilting, and I've just learned crossposting is disabled. (more pics on original post)

This is weirdly emotional* for me to be sharing, probably because I am 12 days shy of a year ago when I first realized I wanted to make this for my daughter, and last year when I thought of it, I was like "oh my god, she graduates high school in May, but that's still so far away!

Time slows for no one, this was about 3 weeks late for the deadline I wanted to give it to her by, and it is perfect and I'm so proud of it and have been excited to share it.

...

I also wanted to have the icon opening quote, and had planned out hiring someone with an embroidery machine to do it, but i figured "I have this hoop frame, i can figure this out" Suffice it to say, my first attempt with heat transfer paper ruined that piece, and i ended up seam ripping it out EVEN THOUGH I HAD ALREADY QUILTED UP TO THAT POINT.

Long story short, it took me FOUR WEEKS from when i finished the quilt top, to when I finished the quote.

Additional Props to the DROPOUT ART DEPARTMENT who gets credit for the loop de loop design. (I emailed the contact info asking "hey, I would like to be able to credit the individual who created this, as my coworkers have had many positive things, and i was curious if it was a person or the "Dropout Art Department." to which they replied about the latter.

All in all... man, curved piecing... its very... intentional. and slow.

...

Anyway, I made a thing and here are the pictures.

This is weirdly emotional* for me to be sharing, probably because I am 12 days shy of a year ago when I first realized I wanted to make this for my daughter, and last year when I thought of it, I was like "oh my god, she graduates high school in May, but that's still so far away!

Time slows for no one, this was about 3 weeks late for the deadline I wanted to give it to her by, and it is perfect and I'm so proud of it and have been excited to share it.

I've actually asked for help on this technique last year when I was making a test quilt, and then January came and I was like "man... i really need to focus on this test quilt" (Which was very beneficial, I learned that going inside out led to more distortion than outside in)

I also wanted to have the icon opening quote, and had planned out hiring someone with an embroidery machine to do it, but i figured "I have this hoop frame, i can figure this out" Suffice it to say, my first attempt with heat transfer paper ruined that piece, and i ended up seam ripping it out EVEN THOUGH I HAD ALREADY QUILTED UP TO THAT POINT.

Long story short, it took me FOUR WEEKS from when i finished the quilt top, to when I finished the quote.

Additional Props to the DROPOUT ART DEPARTMENT who gets credit for the loop de loop design. (I emailed the contact info asking "hey, I would like to be able to credit the individual who created this, as my coworkers have had many positive things, and i was curious if it was a person or the "Dropout Art Department." to which they replied about the latter.

All in all... man, curved piecing... its very... intentional. and slow.

*Also, October 4th 2015, I finished my first quilt. technically. It didn't have batting because I didn't know what i was doing and i was borrowing my mother's sewing machine, but it was a top of t shirts, and jeans, and random stuff from joanne, and backing and binding, and I used a dimpled pink minky, and it has been coming apart but my daughter doesn't care, she thinks it's cozy. so when it came to the backing, i found a really great wideback but since it was so close to graduation i was like "Hey? you know im making this quilt for you, right? do you want this wide back that matches the color tones of the quilt? Or do you want a pink dimpled minky? Like the first one I made you?"

So this whole thing has been very full circle to go from making things while my kids are around and now facing an empty nest.

Anyway, I made a thing and here are the pictures.