FMQ Friday – More Time to Quilt Needed!
Ain’t it the truth! I need more hours in the day in general, and at least 4 more to quilt specifically! Still, even with limited time, I have made some progress on many projects which feels really good.
On Duchess Reigns I did get further into the corner, though the thread painted feathers are SLOW SLOW SLOW.
I was struggling with thread breaks quite often and made an important realization – dense thread easily dulls my needles. I’ve started changing needles every time I change bobbins in this section and instantly the thread breaks cleared up.
I’ve definitely made a giant leap forward in my pieced Express Your Love quilt by finally finishing the 1/4 inch hexagons for her face:
I turned the edge, which are SUPER delicate, and need to get this baby stabilized on the actual quilt top rather than floating around my sewing room. I am NOT going to piece more hexies for her body or arms!
Instead I’m planning to piece some very tiny strips and make a 1/2″ pieced patchwork for those areas. I can do it all by machine and it will be a lot faster and less obnoxious than hexies, but still give me a great patchy effect.
After getting her face turned, I finished sewing my new top and even shot a video today wearing it!
I’m super pleased with the result, but it’s still not 100% perfect. Adding extra space in the sides and middle front was fine, but now the shoulders are tending to lift and feel baggy, particularly when I’m sitting down. I’m going to continue to tweak and fiddle with the pattern until I’m absolutely happy with it.
Whew! Looking back on it, I guess I did get a lot done this week! Sometimes just taking photos and writing it all up is enough to give more perspective to my productivity. I definitely feel better about my progress and ready to go tackle some more projects sitting on the table right now.
So what have you been up to this week? Link up and share your progress and celebrate whatever you’ve made!
Simple rules for the FMQ Friday link up:
1. Link up with a post that features something about Free Motion Quilting (FMQ).
2. Somewhere in your post, you must link back here, or you can just post the FMQF button in your sidebar.
3. Comment on at least a few of the other FMQF links. Share your love of free motion quilting and make this weekly link up a fun way to connect.
Let’s go quilt,
Leah Day
You wrote, "I've started changing needles every time I change bobbins in this section and instantly the thread breaks cleared up." And it makes me think about how I'd like to experiment with sharpening my sewing machine needles instead of throwing them out. Does anyone have experience with this? Seems like the first place I'd start is wadding up a tin foil into a small chunch and poking the needle in the wad. Just a thought. 🙂
There's never enough time in the day! But you are making fine progress. Looks like you are getting quite a bit done and it all looks fabulous!
On your sewing of the top. The shoulder issue could be the fabric or the interfacing your are using. Some fabrics do not drape as others do. An interfacing that is to stiff with make shoulders and collars hang funny also. I don't remember if you fused your interfacing, but a sew in style might perform better. No right or wrong way it is the luck of the draw with fabrics. Chris