Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Squeezing Lemons

"When life hands you lemons...make lemonade" -- right?

Today I've been squeezing lemons.

Monday I got my 'back-up for my back-up" sewing machine ready to go with free-motion quilting on my SAQA 2015 Benefit Auction piece.

Today?  Couldn't get the tension right for love nor money!

Solution?  Make do with 'regular motion' quilting.  But...my walking foot (which I usually use for RMQ) doesn't fit my double back-up machine...and that machine didn't come with it's own.

"Okay, Lord", I prayed,  "If I'm meant to contribute this piece to the 2015 Benefit Auction, You're going to have to help me with this!!"

I cleaned all the dust bunnies out from under the needle plate and around the bobbin.

I put on a new needle (90/14 Superior Top-stitch).

I filled a bobbin with Bottom Line thread and inserted it.

I installed a fresh spool of King Tut thread -- to match the grass -- on the spool stand and threaded the machine...

And...by the end of the morning, all was quilted --  except for the tree, which was fused...

Yellow tree...under construction...

I went for lunch with a friend...Thus fortified, I came home and quilted the tree.  Then I trimmed the piece to 12 1/2" square, ready for facing:

"Yellow Tree" (C) 2015 

And a detail shot...

"Yellow Tree" detail (C) 2015

All of this was done with a conventional foot, feed dogs up, no free- motion in evidence.  I'm thinking I'll be doing more work this way.  Keeps my blood pressure under control!  ;-)

That finished, I can get back to blocking my EBMC piece for this month.

On the knitting front, Sock #1 for the April Socks-from-Sash challenge is finished...



And...the Wedding Shawl is at 18/25 pattern repeats...

So I'm linking to WIP Wednesday over at The Needle and Thread Network...and starting shawl pattern repeat #19.

Have a great rest of the week!



2 comments:

Maggi said...

Thank goodness you got there in the end. I love the way that the colour shift spirals up the leg of the sock.

Katie Stein Sather said...

I often leave the feed dogs up... with my free motion foot...
alls well that ends well.