wip wednesday 2026.9

i got some sunday slow stitching done this past weekend and i finally came up with a pattern order for my stitching on "groovy liberty." i've been stitching the middle of each piece in the pinwheels of this block, but there was no good or obvious way to work around the block as the stitching is not connected from one piece to the next and the stop and start points on the ends aren't always close enough to each other to easily move between on a continuous thread. this slow stitching session, however, a feasible order of stitching occurred to me. if you look closely at the stitching done in the above photo you can see my plan of attack. i know it's so hard to see in the floral piece, but if you look closely/zoom in, you can see that the floral piece in the upper right corner has stitching across the middle horizontally.

the stitching starts in the bottom right corner on that dark chambray piece. i stitched a vertical straight line in the middle from the bottom near the lower sashing to the top, ending just before the floral piece. then i move my needle under the fabric to the far right side of the floral piece, poking the needle back through at the horizontal mid-point of the floral piece, next to the sashing on the right, and stitch across the middle of the floral piece towards the center of the block. it's kind of an inverted L shape or an off-center T shape, except the lines don't touch anywhere. i cut my thread length just long enough to do those two pieces, so i tie off after making that L/T. then I'll start over in the next chambray piece in the top right corner and turn 90 degrees down to do the adjacent floral piece to it's left. i can do this four times per block and just keep wrapping around 90 degrees each time. if i wanted to work with a longer thread length, i could easily move to that green "thorpe" piece in the upper left square and then move to the chambray in the upper right corner next before having to tie off. but i like the shorter length for now.

easy - peasy and it feels good to have a consistent plan.

d1 & R came to help out for their portion of d4's birthday quilt. so we got that top all put together into a flimsy now.

now that she's done with all the 16 patches for "pinky stinky" edna, d5 and i have been discussing her next quilt make. she's been wanting to make use of the fat quarter set heather ross gave her at quiltcon 2025. she wants to fussy cut the ponies and feature them in the quilt. she's been pouring over my books and wracking her brain for an idea.

 we spread out the beautiful courthouse steps quilt i got from jennifer (penelope handmade) to look at that pattern because it's simple and d5 likes it so much. we were pretty much decided on this one with 4" pony squares for the hearth pieces until she started seeing dumbbell shapes in the blocks. so there went that (easy) idea. she really wanted to make economy blocks but i was trying to find something with larger blocks and simpler piecing for her to tackle. plus, we couldn't get enough ponies out of the fat quarter if we cut them in diamond shapes. so no economy blocks this time.

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A post shared by Jennifer Jones (@penelopehandmade)

when i got jennifer's newsletter featuring her newest pattern, constance, i knew we'd found our pattern. it's going to be so cute and will help push d5's skills up a little with the introduction of hsts and flip-and-stitch flying geese. we're excited! she'll be doing a toddler size for her niece, little A.

i've been working on the quilting for "frosted forest star" here and there. i spent one evening labouring over it, getting basically no where because the thread kept breaking about every foot. oh my goodness, was that frustrating! i tried everything: changed the thread spool for a brand new one, changed the needle (twice), cleaned out the interior of the machine (which was pretty clean), adjusted tension, adjusted bobbin tension, switched bobbins, changed the needle a 3rd time. after a while, i remembered having the identical problem with this same thread on "radiant suzy" many years ago. i looked up blog & intsa posts to see how i solved the problem before. the answer last time was "tension." that was unhelpful as i'd already adjusted that as much as i could and was getting no where. 

i finally changed machines altogether. i'd been working on d5's 2020 juki and switched to my original tl2010q for two reasons: the 2020 special edition doesn't go quite as slow on the turtle and the thread looked like it was getting rubbed somewhere along the path to the needle, and the original machine was the one i'd done this quilting on before and gotten it to work on. i'd been meaning to switch around which machine does what in the sewing room set-up anyway. it makes sense that the piecing machines are closer to the pressing table and across from each other and that the quilting machine is at the end of the table where there's more runway for the bulk of the full quilt behind it. that's all settled and situated now.

it took a trial run or two to get the tension correct on the new/old machine, but in the end it worked. hallelujah! i'm so much happier now. seriously, i could have probably completed the entire quilt in the time it took me to do a 1/3 of it with the thread breaking constantly.

weekly report

piecing

• d4's 16th birthday quilt flimsy completed

epp 100 days project

• i will be talking about this project next post. it's not a new project but a new approach to an ooooold project. i'm doing a little epp every day in hopes of moving the 13 yr old wip towards the finish line.

quilting

• "frosted forest star" straightline quilting begun

handquilting

• 4.25 "groovy liberty" blocks stitched (10.25/42)

planning/fabric pulls

• selected a pattern and fabrics for d5's next project: constance

purchases

• "constance" pattern from jennifer jones at "penelope handmade" (but this isn't for me)
• no fabric! that's two months straight no fabric purchased

trees, not hearts

finally, something other than pink to share, even if it is dreadfully out of season. i finally got a chance to work on the quilting of my last batch of basted quilts. first up was "bright forest" because of the color that was on the machine that had the walking foot attached.

this golden tan-ish aurifil 2318 was on the machine that d1 was using to attach her binding. the correct foot was also on the machine, so i looked over the available quilt options to see if any of them would look good with this color and save me the trouble of changing thread.

at first glance, none of the quilts were obvious candidates, but as i thought about what it would look like on "bright forest," i decided it would be a subtle golden holiday touch to the otherwise very bold and bright quilt. using a more intense gold color would compete with the fabric colors in a way i didn't fancy but the soft gold would add a touch of holiday sparkle without competing or clashing. and i'm happy with the results, so i approve of my choice.

i chose a simple quilting pattern: straight lines through the middle of all the sashings and cornerstones and then straight lines through the horizontal and vertical centers of each block.

with the quilt rolled in at the sides in preparation for feeding through the machine, you can see the different fabrics of the backing and how well they compliment the random collection of colors i used on the front. i'm really so very pleased with how this back turned out and feel like it just makes the quilt. i was rather ambivalent about the top once all the blocks were done, then the sashing and cornerstones helped me like it more. the backing makes me like it a lot now. those boxy bears and the trees were worth the price i paid for them for the way they elevate the overall quilt and enhance the vibe. plus, the selvage, which is included and shows in the backing, has "2020" printed in it, the year this quilt and its companion got their start from a random collection of kona colors i ordered at the same time.

i'm not even minding the christmas colors and motifs in the month of hearts and flowers and all things love. it does make me think i should pull out those "cute betsy hearts" since it's february, but we'll see what i get around to in what's left of the month. knocking out a few more hearts would be fun . . .

what was not fun: finding a pin stuck in the quilt while i was working on the quilting. d5 was sitting at the machine across from me working on her 16-patch blocks and i thought she'd let a pin go astray, but on examination discovered it was actually embedded inside the quilt sandwich. i must have accidentally let it fall on the backing which was spread on the floor before i added the batting to it. so very odd! fortunately, i discovered the pin by the smallest of pokes to my finger while moving the quilt around under the walking foot and at an early enough point in the process that no unpicking was required to reach my hand inside the sandwich and remove it.

this is all worked up now, so which quilt do you think i put under the walking foot next? hint: it's not from the same batch but from a previous basting batch. if you look under the "quilting queue" on my "wips" page, you might be able to guess.

how do you quilt a straight line on a juki?

when did this become the orange and navy quilt blog? ever since i started working on these 3 different boy quilts that each use some of the same fabrics, i guess. i do like the combo, but it's getting a bit old. i'm itching to work with something else, but am practicing a smidge of self-control by continuing to quilt "way out weston" (what i've named the baby boy simple strips quilt). actually, it's part laziness - i didn't want to change out the foot or thread for something else, either.

 

people who think they can't draw will describe themselves as "unable to draw a straight line," meaning they can't even do the most basic shape. what does it mean about a quilter that can't stitch a straight line - not able to quilt? it's such a basic shape and concept, with guidelines involved, even, that many a grown woman has been surprised at it's difficulty.

 

now i realize dear juki was purebred for fmq, which she is brilliant for, but i'm rather taken aback that even with her behemoth of a walking foot, i'm having issues with the basic straight line. i talked about this before when i was trying to get "twirly" together and got a few helpful responses such as, "go slow" or "lengthen your stitch." well, i tried that and everything else i could think of but am still seeking further input for how to straight line with juki.

 

i'll describe my method as best i can in hopes someone spots my mistakes.

 

• i quilt full-throttle on the tortoise (juki's slow setting). that's pretty slow because slow and steady wins the race, even in quilting. but maybe i need to ease up further? like an inch a minute?
• i have switched to a larger stitch size: 3, 3.5, or even 4. (no idea how this compares to other machines.)
• i have the presser foot pressure gauge at it's lowest-pressure setting.
• i barely guide the fabric through at all, mainly just lightly holding it up a few inches out from each side of the needle and foot so that it can freely feed through mostly on it's own. if i try to push or guide even slightly, i get ripples. if i let the machine completely feed itself, i get super tiny stitches and little to no movement.
• i started in the middle of the quilt and switch directions each time i begin another row so that i'm not always pushing the top toward the same end of the quilt.
• i pin baste about a fist's width apart in each direction. i do have rather large hands, so maybe i need to pin more closely? i average about 100 pins on a baby quilt, which seems like a lot.

 

really, it just seems that the quilt isn't feeding through at the same rate despite the walking foot. the top seems to be slightly pushed flat, causing it to spread out rather than go through with the rest of the sandwich or tuck up under the foot. i had the brilliant idea to try using my slider with the walking foot, thinking it would slip through more freely. after the quilt didn't move at all i made that missing synapse connection, realizing that the feed dogs can't reach the quilt when the slider's on. duh.

 

i'm at a loss what else to do other than keep trying and practicing. i tried to photograph the main issue i'm having.

 every so often, the top starts to pucker and fold over, like the above photo.

 if i simply stop and lift the presser foot up, it usually releases all on it's own without any smoothing from me. however, over the length of the quilt, the top is also pushed forward, which is creating ripples in the top.

getting my lines straight is another matter entirely. i was disappointed to find juki's walking foot does not accommodate a guide bar, so i have to find lines to work alongside myself. or mark the top with my hera marker - ugh. i do not want to spend the extra time doing that. this often means i end up outline quilting each of the seams. usually i line up with the foot's edge on either side or some other part of the apparatus, like the edge of the big white box, below.

staying straight is simply a matter of practice, i believe, and paying attention. still, the needle can wander pretty darn quickly. practice, practice, practice. i thought i was doing pretty good at following along until i took the quilt off and looked at it as a whole. practice, practice, practice. between trying to make sure the foot is staying in line properly and watching for puckers, it gets pretty intense. and every now and then i miss something, resulting in a tuck or two sewn into the quilt, or a wandering line (look closely at the photo below). i'm not hyperventilating over this like the last fmq disaster, but i do wish it looked better. i'm betting on practice to help me out, at least with accuracy.

i was wondering if my lines were as bad as i thought them and what good quilting done by an expert on a juki might look like, so i pulled down rachel's "lolly lolly" for some comparison, since it hasn't been washed yet. her lines do look straighter to the eye and there is a teeny tiny bit of ripple, more noticeable on the back. however, her quilting is a lot more dense than mine is so far, so i can't really say how it compares. i'm wondering if my ripples that exist now will turn into unavoidable puckers when i fill in some of the spaces between. i guess all i can do is move forward and find out.

moving on

golly, friends, if i ever needed an ego stroke, i'd just come here and share some quilting woes. you ladies have responded quite beyond expectation to my fmq disaster. that is certainly not why i shared my troubles, but it was a rather unexpected and pleasant result.

i have come to terms with the quilt catastrophe, deciding to donate it when it's completed and make a replacement. as you can see above, after the fmq-induced meltdown and past unsavory experience with spray basting, we are moving forward on the quilt and my 5 yr old, d4, has her quilting job back. both of us are happy.

(by the way, don't all of you allow trikes in the house? especially pink ones? i'd never considered it before this house, but it's an advantage of tile floors and large central hallways. especially in the summer heat.)

after reading all the comments, there were a few things i thought i should make clear about my fmq woes:

1. i did not like the way the dense quilting was changing the look of the quilt even before it got ugly. the replacement will be straightlined to maintain the look i wanted.
2. i was happy with the wishbone quilting in the white strips and most of the other quilting in the patterned strips was acceptable, albeit not very good.
3. the only part i was considering unpicking was the wandering wave/horrid diamonds in the pink strip. by no means was i going to unpick the whole quilt or even half of it.
4. another reason i was distressed was that in addition to the lovely lottie da fabrics, i had used a few scraps of out-of-print fabrics that had sentimental value and connection to the recipient. also, you may have noticed i used some of my all-time favorite fabric (meadowdot in robin's egg/mint) in the quilt. i was sick over the waste of such precious prints. fortunately, i think i have enough scraps remaining to work into the replacement quilt.

alright, that's all i'm going to say about this until it's complete or i get the replacement done.

this is what i'm up to now:

yes, another newfo! i just got an invitation to a cousin-in-law's baby shower this weekend, so suddenly i need another baby quilt in a week. there is no fear of fmq disasters this time around. it will definitely be straightlined. goodness, my family needs to slow down on babies! i'm already behind by about 4 quilts just from the last 4 months and i can't get anything else done with all the baby quilts i keep "needing". there was another cousin that just had a baby last week but somehow i didn't get the shower invite, which was sad. but i was relieved to know i'd also missed the stress of trying to complete another pronto quilt.

this quilt is another simple strips quilt that started with my leftover jelly roll strips from riley blake's superstar that i used in s2's quilt, "bandwidth". it was feeling very flat on it's own, so i added three bits from my stash. this perked things up, but when all stash options, which are decidedly feminine and floral, ran out, it still needed something. hence a quick browse at some on sale fabrics while at jo ann for something entirely different. (this is completely legal under the terms of my personal clauses in my fabric fast, but it still feels disappointing that i made a purchase - even if it was only a few quarter yards.)

while i was quilting this afternoon, some other fun stuff was going on around the house:

 sister hair brushing time. that long strawberry blonde hair is irresistible to brush! (and, yes, the nice room is still wip central.)

the toddler played her new favorite game "cold feet" with me, covering mama's feet with some paper napkins to warm them up. lately, she gets out my scrap basket and says, "feet cold, feet coooold!" then proceeds to wrap her feet in scraps. today she decided mama's feet needed help.

as the late afternoon sunlight moved across the dining sewing room, it highlighted my iron and lit up the yellow walls in the loveliest way. i tried catching the effect, to no avail.

 the extremes in exposure left me with either a well-exposed iron and dark room . . .

or well-exposed room and washed out iron. oh, well. i have the warm fuzzy image in my mind if not in pixels. at least these will remind me of the experience.

still making christmas

 "twirly" is at the 95% finished stage: binding is machine sewn to the top, needs to be handstitched to the back. it's now completed enough to gift for Christmas and has moved to the handbinding que, which is behind the top completed/quilted que. i am quite pleased to report that i got the binding put together and fully on the quilt without having to consult one single tutorial or photo anywhere.

i get binding now! i know how to do it all by my big self, i can actually visualize how and why it works the way it does. this is a big step forward for me as a quilter. it was a tiny bit tight after i attached the tails, but i got it to sew on the top with no problems or weird puckering, so it's a success.

i did take an extra-long time, going super slow, to see if i could get the seam allowance more exact, thus making for perfectly balanced binding. it was tedious. we'll see if it was worthwhile or not when i do the handstitching.

in the interest of moving my Christmas makes along, yesterday i decided to forgo exercise, personal grooming, or a change of clothing in order that i might give all my attention to getting this thing done! sometimes sacrifices are made in the name of the greater quilting good. (today, however, i gave my children a slightly better example of motherhood by showering and dressing myself.)

i owe big thanks to my quilting crew for the large group, concerted effort to get this quilt completed. my number one pin remover did a great job depinning for me. littlest sister did her part by running around on the quilt, stealing everything she could get her grubby little hands on, and bringing over a ruler to take measurements for her own personal entertainment. (liz, princess would have died to see all 3 of us actually on the quilt at the same time!)

these are her go-to tools. and they are definitely hers if you judge by the way she screeches, "mine!MINE!!!" and sprints whenever she finds them.

the final quilting of the straight lines with the fmq foot went badly. very badly, indeed. but it's done and i've moved on. i'm hoping that when the creases from the hera marker disappear, and you can no longer see where the stitching was supposed to be as opposed to where it ended up, it won't look so poor. but that will only help a little, i'm afraid.

my only other concern: d3, who this is intended for, said yesterday she has decided she wants "her" quilt to have animals all over it. she doesn't seem too interested in this quilt. i hope it's not a huge disappointment when she opens up her gift and finds "twirly" inside.

on the funny side, d4 was trying to figure out who this was for when we were working on pins. she asked if it was hers (at least someone is interested!). nope.

"oldest sister?" nope.

"second oldest sister?" nope.
she was hot on the trail and i was preparing to evade the next question without directly lying to her when she asked (or maybe i said, can't remember exactly)

"oldest brother?" yes! oldest brother.

laughing hard, she replied, "but mom! this is a girl color quilt. why did you pick girl colors for a boy?" oh. i thought he liked pink. doesn't he like pink?

"no, he likes purple." i guess i made a mistake. do you think he'll like it?

she had a lot of fun telling everyone all day that the pink quilt was for oldest brother, that silly mom thought he liked pink. i can only hope d3, whose name i have quilted into the stippling, decides she likes a quilt that twirls like she does. even without animals or her favorite color: purple. in my defense, i started this quilt with her in mind last December before her color preference was so decidedly fixed. i hope what her younger sister d4 said, that d3 hates pink, isn't true! it'll need a Christmas miracle otherwise.

 

 

my week 8 making Christmas update:

d1 - "plus a diamond" needs handbinding

s1 - wonky stacked coins not started

d2 - "taite" needs handbinding

s2 - "bandwidth" fabric selections made, strips being cut
d3 - "twirly" quilted, binding machine attatched

d4 - flowered pillow sham some flower centers blanket stitched

d5 - "paris daydreams" flimsy

penny patch qal - top completed; a flimsy

 

linking in to the making Christmas blog hop and link party hosted by lucy at charm about you this 8th week.



some fmq and family, too

 after having difficulty with fabric pushing and bunching on my first attempt at the straight line quilting for "twirly", i took leah day's advice from her craftsy class and tried to do the straight lines with my fmq foot, to varying degrees of success and disaster.

it felt good while i was doing the fmq, but it wasn't always working as well as i thought. i did manage to keep my stitching pretty darn straight, for the most part. my main problem with it was that occasionally the needle would jump to the left a stitch length or two when i would stop to move my hands. this is horribly noticeable when you look at the lines.

when i stipple, i can move one hand or the other without having to stop very often for adjustments, but with straight lines, you have no choice but to stop to move your hands pretty much every time your hands reach the end of the quilting table. and that's when the needle would mysteriously shift over a bit and ruin the straight line effect. argh! i redid some of it and left other bits. i'm hoping a wash and crinkling will help hide the less-than-perfect lines in this quilt. i suppose i just need more practice and it will start to come more naturally to me.

the good news is that the fabric stopped shifting and bunching like it did under the walking foot. now the lines just don't look so good.

on the other hand, i tried out the wishbone pattern in the dark green sashing strips and it worked beautifully! i thoroughly enjoyed sewing this pattern and will definitely use it again. it was next to impossible to photograph, but it looks good on the quilt.

 all that looping was meditative and relaxing. it's a forgiving and pretty pattern.

 while i was busy quilting away, working out my arms (please tell me this counts as exercise of some sort because my arms are sore!), we had 4 daughters, 3 nieces, and 2 neighbor girls playing in the family room. they decided to create a play for us. of course they made a huge mess, but also a very cute production. i loved that they used as many of my quilts as they could find as part of the set. there were quilts laid out everywhere! they made it look homey, i suppose.

other family happenings this weekend: our snow pea plant produced it's first pods for consumption. the 5 yr old and i have been watering and watching these grow from seed since the end of September. it's the extent of our winter garden this year.

my oldest son sought out the hat loom and began a new hat for himself to keep his head warm in the dropping temperatures. i love that even my boys are handy with fibers when necessary. these are by no means high-quality hats, but they enjoy making them and will wear them around the house on a chilly morning.

d1 even made his own hook to replace the missing one from the kit. he fashioned it out of a paperclip and some beeswax. that's one handy boy.

report

staycation is over, juki is covered up for a bit. my sewing corner abandoned, projects slung about. i didn't get all 4 quilts finished i'd hoped to, but there were also some surprises thrown in there that were fun anyway. here's the recap of what i got done in the 2 weeks of quilt-a-thon staycation.

1.  "romance in the garden" (above on chair) is fully quilted and being bound

2. that paris nightmare turned into "paris daydreams" and is waiting for a back & sandwich

3. the "not quilt" baby quilt is complete, right down to a washing. just needs delivery in the next few days.

4. "3 across" panel baby quilt for the new neighbors was delivered yesterday, washed, beribboned and all. the little miss it is intended for is expected/scheduled to arrive friday!

5. "plus a diamond" got quilted & trimmed. binding forthcoming. you didn't even know i touched this one, did you? i never said. more on her later.

i suppose that's pretty good for me for 2 weeks work. i'm still a bit sad i didn't get "twirl" fixed or "taite" quilted. really, "taite" was the most important project, but the others all led up to it in one way or another and time just ran out. almost there!

tackling the portable epp front next. join me, liz, and everyone else, will you? (according to liz, that constitutes major arm twisting from me - so join us!)

linking in to lee's "wip wednesday" at freshly pieced.

how she sews

 everyone wants to know how it's going with the new machine. i don't want to dwell on juki or appear to brag about her. i'm sensitive to those unable to get a new machine or who are struggling along with a less-than-satisfactory one. been there. i hesitated to even mention my new arrival at all except for two reasons:

1) when searching for a machine, i found it really helpful to read about others' experiences with their machines. there are so many options out there, i would never even have known about this machine if rachel at stitched in color hadn't posted about hers, bless her. i appreciated that and hope someone else might like to know the ups and downs of my experience with a juki. i wish more people would talk about their machines.

2) i wanted to celebrate juki's arrival with a giveaway! it's in the original post about her from monday. i enjoy spreading the love.

oh, and for the record, i don't plan on getting another machine, like, ever. i plan on making the most of this investment and this lady is a keeper, built to last and last. i don't foresee a need for anything more than her. i still have little brother to fill in her gaps and i am good with that. i certainly don't want to be greedy.

so, how is she sewing?
dreamy.

yep, that's cliche, but like most cliches, true.
i can not believe the difference a machine makes. i did some piecing with her on my paris nightmare over the weekend. she was great, my ideas not so much. but that was all me. yesterday i finally put my brave face on and tackled fmq with her. oh, what was i waiting for?! night and day, ladies, night and day difference here. juki was made for this.

i'd finished off both my little doll quilts with little brother and had no more sample projects to work on. i didn't want to go straight to a real quilt with a new machine untested. so i lifted (that's what we call it in scrapbooking, "lifting") liz's not really a quilt baby quilt idea, explained here. brilliant.

i was in need of a baby gift for two new upcoming friend babies and this fit the bill. it also gave me a whole yard of practice space for my fmq. the first one is for a girl and while digging through my pile of purchases from cia's palette (two years ago!), i happened upon two lovely prints that had the same shade of purply-pink for the background. (what do you call that color, anyway? 10 years ago i would have called it ugly, but it's growing on me. hyacinth?)  that amy butler daisy chain is so fantastic! i first used it on "at last"'s binding, which it was perfect for. glad i still have another yard of it.

here's what i like about this pairing: one is totally vintage and one completely modern. that is either super cool or completely doesn't work. i'm going with the first idea. the line between innovative and really stupid can be so fine sometimes. my kids just stared at me when i shared so i think they might be leaning toward the latter assessment. well, hopefully my friend, who is of my same generation as i am, agrees with me.

the baby really likes it. she plopped down on it and began plucking at the pins the moment i sat it down to examine my progress last night. but she does that to everything i sew, so it's small consolation or compliment. (she's wearing a diaper, not that you can see it behind her head. we're not complete heathens here.)

the fmq was just wonderful with juki. well, her part of it. i definitely still need improvement on my end. but she did marvelously. juki comes with 2 fmq feet: 1/4" and 1/5". i have no idea what the difference is or under what circumstance to choose which. i went with the smaller one so i could see better around it. i must say the feet for juki are hard core, heavy weight industrial attachments. they are solid.

before i started the not-quilt, i had just a row or two of work to do on the 2nd doll quilt. for some reason, i was having a lot of trouble at the very end of quilting it when working on little brother 2 weeks ago. the bobbin tension was going nuts with tons of ugly pulling on the back. it was horrid! nothing i did to fix it worked, either. in the photo above you can see all those pinprick marks of the needle going over the same spot about 4 times. i finally gave up. this is one of the reasons i decided i definitely needed wanted a machine upgrade. with juki here, i attempted one last time to finish the area. not a single problem. the stitches in the bottom of the photo are done on little brother. the top stitches are done with juki. better, for sure.

after a few inches i checked to see how the backside was looking. wow. same as the front. no birdnests or tension problems at all and i hadn't even adjusted tension from my piecing yet. it took about 30 seconds to finish doll quilt #2 and i moved on to the not-quilt.

side note: the supreme slider really does help! i accidentally started without it on so i can attest to the difference it makes. now i just need some gloves. i was feeling the lack of them by the end.

the not-quilt went great. the machine was making me look like a pro, or at least not like a complete novice. i kept thinking, "oh, that was bad! it's going to look bad there." but when i looked at the expected problem area, it wasn't too bad after all. in the hands of an experienced person this machine could do wonders, i'm sure.

the throat space is amazing. not once was i ever even near to running out of room. my whole shoulder could probably go through it. of course, this was only a one yard quilt. i have yet to work on a larger size, but it's huge. room to maneuver.

i had to stop half-way through to tend to dinner and bedtimes. it was rather late when i got back to the machine, but i wanted to finish as much of the project as i could. that was probably a bad idea. i find sewing after about 9pm is not so good for me. going directly to bed and getting up earlier works much better.

the second half didn't go quite as well for me. i began to feel less controlled rather than more so. i got more jerky instead of smoother. but that was my tired reflexes, not the machine.

 oh, and this was my fault, too. can you see i sewed through my slider? yikes! i saw that spot where the feed dogs were way down and thought it was the hole. wrong-o. the real hole was a bit south and is round. now my slider has a hole, too. but somehow it didn't affect the stitching at all.

the one problem i did encounter that's never occurred before: thread break. the thread broke on me twice during my second session. i did notice that was when i was very close to the edge both times, possibly going through the selvage on the backside, which i didn't bother to remove. it's my first time sewing with this thread, also, so i'm not really sure of the cause. it was only a minor inconvenience. juki is rather tedious to thread. i still have to pull out the manual to make sure i do it right. same with loading the bobbin. but it's not that bad and i'm sure i'll get used to it time. i'm just used to little brother taking about 3 seconds to thread and juki takes more like 10 or 15 since there are more steps involved.

no complaints, really.
that's my report on how she sews.
dreamy.

linking up with kelly's first ever "needle and thread thursday" at my quilt infatuation!