Here is what's on my frame today. This is the last week day of work for me, and Monday the 21st I begin my journey south. So it is kind of nice to see my frame empty for a change. And now that I can see my fabric stash from here, I could use more bright orangey-yellow...

Here is one corner of my non-Blooming Nine Patch, in the long process of being un-quilted:

Normally I would be quite cranky about the time I will waste picking out hundreds of thousands of stitches. But I'm taking this quilt with me to my Mom's in So. Cal. so that I'll have something to work on as we gab endlessly into the late hours of the night. And when my sisters and nieces and daughters and I are all hanging out visiting and catching up, I can work on this quilt. Maybe I can get them to join in! Like an un-Quilting Bee? Who says I can't start a new tradition?

: )

Even though I achieved a zigzag feather today, I'm not calling the day a success. Every day that I've been working on this quilt I've been trying out the exact same brand and weight of thread - Aurifil 40 wt. cotton. Yet today after making an entire row of feathers I discovered that I should've used either a 50 wt. or a smaller needle. Or both. The stitches were not at all to my satisfaction, and the tension on the back is kind of sloppy. What can anyone say then? Is it the thread? The machine? The quilter? The impending eclipse?

To make the zigzag feathers, I began by chalking the actual zigzag line so I could straddle it with stitching. I wanted a vein, and that's what I got. Then I used my Marvy Marker to show where the inside feathers will have to meet:

The picture isn't very clear, below, but if you click on it you can see how I managed to get into those inside corners. I can tell you I ripped out a lot of stitches before I made an acceptable series of feather shapes:

The very center of the quilt had to be done like this, so I could end the same way in the outer corners:

At a complete loss for what to do with the next row, I pulled out my tiniest circle template and just began to dance along the green squares with a continuous curve. It was quite relaxing. And it got the space filled with something that will look much better on the back of this quilt:

Sadly, I'm mere moments away from unloading this quilt and packing it down to So. Cal. so I can rip out all of the stitches I've done so far. I love this quilt top so much, and I should've just followed my gut and stitched an all-over design that didn't jumble up the piecing so much. 

But my goal this week was to try out various colors and spools of Aurifil thread to test it out. I should've used a quilt I didn't really like. I get so emotionally involved in the quilts I make, and I've never used a quilt top of mine as a sample. It just doesn't seem correct in my brain. I envision a quilting design after I've made a quilt, because I want to see what it's asking for. 

This non-Blooming Nine Patch really wanted an all-over design.

Probably a nice big piece of muslin would've been a better pick for sampling thread this week...

To make the little design for the next row of my Blooming Nine Patch quilt, I first made the top outline of each square, stitching from left to right. When I got to the far right side of the quilt, I stitched back from right to left and completed the bottom of the outline, as well as the little design in the middle. This was all done in one continuous line with no tying off.

Stitching from right to left, I used the first line of stitching to travel back on, by stitching in the same holes:

Then, using my 90 degree Junior ruler, I stitched the bottom of the outline:

When I got to the other side of this block, leaving the needle in the quilt, I pulled out a circle template and aimed for the center of my chalk lines:

Until this little design emerged:

For this row I've used a light pink Aurifil 40 wt. cotton #2324 on top, with a darker pink #2315 in the bobbin. Both spools were about half empty when I began. Both spools are performing perfectly. 

I've chalked the next 2 rows for a zigzag feather. But I'm feeling yucky and so I'll have to try it tomorrow.

This is my own quilt, a Blooming Nine-Patch from Blanche Young's "Tradition with a Twist" book. It does not bloom, however, because I made it from my stash - according to what yardage matched up with the rows. 

Since it's my own quilt and that means I'm working but not earning, I salvaged my cotton batting from 2 large scraps I've been holding onto for just such an occasion. I laid them out on the rack so that the factory edges were butted up against each other:

Then I used Heat Press batting tape which I buy here to join them, on each side of the join:

Since I only added about 24 inches to a 60 inch piece, I loaded the batting onto the backing with the short piece first (the 24" part). That's because I usually don't tug on the batting during the beginning of the quilt, but more towards the end. To make sure that the weight of the bottom half of the batting didn't pull on the seam I draped it over the batting bar under my machine:

I loaded up some reddish Aurifil 40 wt. cotton thread #2230 into the bobbin and on the top, and made chevrons in the small outer border. I also did some SID around the red blocks:

To make the chevrons, I used my 90 degree Junior ruler from The Gadget Girls to make the first pass from left to right at the top border:

I'm training myself to quilt back from right to left now. So I moved the template up to the next line and quilted back to the start:

I don't like to use dark thread on the back of quilts with light backings. But this is my own quilt and I wanted the top thread colors to show on the back for each row. So this is how the red design looks on the turquoise backing:

I've quilted some odd angles that I now have to figure out how to fill. I think I want to do something feathery or flowery for the next row, and then something angular every other row. Maybe. 

The Aurifil thread behaved perfectly on this quilt. This spool is one of the older colors that I've had in my studio for a few years. Age, dust, lack of humidity, come what may - this thread always behaves just like I ask it to.

A phone call from a friend has prompted me to try a fix for my machine vibration issues. She has suggested that I put some solid wood blocks - such as 1 x 4 squares - under each leg of my machine. That is in the hope that the stability will hold the machine level. The terrible vibrations I've been dealing with in certain areas have been such a disappointment. If it helps I'll be sure to blog profusely on and on about it because I'll be giddy.

But if it doesn't, I shall keep plugging along. Waiting for my prince to come.

After receiving the replacement spool of #5001 from Red Rock Threads I was back in business over the weekend. They sent me this spool in exactly 2 days and I am so impressed with their service. The new spool stitched out perfectly. As far as the Aurifil Project goes, I did not use much of this new spool and will not know if it's defective until I get to the halfway point on the spool. Someday.

But I can tell you that I am loving how this quilting design accentuates my customer's piecing! I hope I can use it again in the future.

While that quilt was off the frame awaiting the new spool of thread, I racked up this 88 X 88 "Earth, Wind & Fire" quilt and finished it off with the large-scale version of Lorien's "Bountiful Feathers" pantograph. I think I might invest in the smaller version as well.

I am pleased to report that Aurifil 40 wt. #2310 performed perfectly - as usual - all the way to the end of the spool:

These were the last 2 customer quilts I'll be finishing this month. Next week I'm heading down for my annual pilgrimage to Southern California for family gatherings. 

During that time I will be visiting longarm shops and seeing if they'll let me photograph them and blog about them! If I can keep myself from drooling too much. Most quilters go nutty over fabric, and I'm certainly one of them. But show me a longarm shop with large cones of shimmery thread and walls covered in pantographs and racks of acrylic templates - all in the flesh instead of on a computer screen! - and I'm bound to faint right there.

If I receive the thread from Alex at Aurifil this week, I'll rack up one of my own quilts and do a last-minute test on a spool to see if it behaves. In my world, that's a wonderful excuse to work on my own stuff!

: )

What a sweet surprise I got today when my blogger friend Judy of Furball Farm Quilting in Australia nominated me with this fun Liebster Blog Award! This award is for small blogs with less than 200 followers. Which I most certainly qualify for.

Judy has been one of the most prolific commenters on my blog, and always with the encouragement I've needed at just the right time. I love her humor! I'm excited to see more of what she will accomplish on her new machine!

Now it's my turn to nominate 5 small blogs for the Liebster Award! These are some of the blogs I visit with my morning coffee. They've inspired me in so many ways. I hope you will enjoy them, too!

Cecilia finishes quilts with freehand & computerized longarm work: On The Frame
Jenny has been inspirational on her non-stitch regulated longarm machine: Jenny's Doodling Needle
Kay does heirloom quilting on her longarm machine in Scotland: Borderline Quilter
Caz is a new follower of mine, and I love her fun blog: The Accidental Quilter
And finally, the brave new blogger - "Lola" over at Sew Sleepless

Enjoy! And hopefully all of us Small Blogs will one day be Big Girl Blogs!

Or not .... : )

Before everything went south a few days ago, I had this modern Bali Pop quilt on the rack. I was just 3 rows from being finished. So, while waiting for a new spool of thread to arrive, I decided to baste it off the machine temporarily. Thankfully I have zippered leaders.

The quilting design for the Bali Pop quilt struck me immediately, and it swam around in my head until I could express it like this on the quilt:

The more I stitched this design, the more I longed to have it in pantograph form. But I have not seen this design on any of my usual pantograph sites. 

That simple lines-and-circles design has been wanting to get out of my head and become a real pantograph. After roughly drawing it out, I noticed that it would take two passes for each row. And the straight lines would be a challenge for a hand-guided longarmer like me. But I am determined to make this into my own pantograph and try it on a quilt soon. Just so I can move it out of my head...

While the Bali Pop quilt waits unzipped in the sidelines, I have racked up this large "Earth, Wind & Fire" quilt by one of my most prolific customers. This is her second EWF quilt. I did a custom job on the previous version, but on this one she said she was so tired of looking at it that she just wants a pantograph. So I chose "Bountiful Feathers" by Lorien:

Today I decided to use a half-empty spool of Aurifil 40 wt. cotton #2310. Just to spice up my morning. And, I'm happy to report that it has behaved exactly like Aurifil always does in my machine - perfectly. The spool on the right is the one I am using today, the spool on the left is the defective one. Just in case those numbers under the color number have anything to do with anything:

Since I only have 2 half-empty spools of #2310 on hand, I decided to try a different thread in the bobbin today. I chose Fil-Tec Magna-Soft spun polyester prewounds in Khaki #24525. Don't you just love these cute little jars?

The tension behaved wonderfully for an entire row, which is all I've done so far.

The fantastic response from Alex Veronelli of Aurifil, as well as the many comments from fellow quilters, has been an honor. I am looking forward to receiving the sample spools he is sending me to try out. And I hope that by blogging about it, other quilters and piecers who use Aurifil will be encouraged to keep plugging away!

: )

In the longarm industry it isn't kosher to expose the faults of merchants publicly. They're treated like untouchables. Kind of like a mafia of sorts.

In the past when I've had problems with my machine I've played by the rules - publicly - and never mentioned names or specifics about any persons or companies.

For a couple of years now I've had several people privately email me so that they could speak freely about their own issues, which were similar to mine. All the usual stuff, but nobody else would help them. In fact, they experienced an "excommunication" of sorts from certain forums because of their cries for help.

I can tell you that nothing boils my blood more than an industry that behaves like a mafia.

Which is why I'm here today to tell you about something that is wrong with Aurifil thread spools. It's not my opinion, it's a proven fact. It's not that I have anything against the Aurifil company - if you follow this blog you know that I love Aurifil thread. In fact, they should pay me for all of the good publicity I give them, if I had a larger following. But this is my blog and I feel safe letting my few followers know of a problem so that you don't have to have your day ruined. Like mine was.

Aurifil thread behaves perfectly in almost every stitching scenario. Until you get down to this part of the spool, in the 5000 and 6000 series of newer colors:

At this point on the spool, the thread begins to pull itself from the bottom of the spool way too tightly as it attempts to overcome that slight curve at the bottom of the wound thread. I was baffled at first as to why the thread suddenly would not pull through smoothly. 

Then, I watched the spool as I pulled it and sure enough - the thread gets caught up underneath the remaining thread and causes too much strain on the tension.

Instead of the thread smoothly unwinding from the sides of the spool, as it reaches the bottom it pulls from the bottom - sort of underneath itself. 

So now the half-empty spools that are beginning to accumulate in my studio are only good for making bobbins. 

Which wouldn't be so bad except that I really really really needed the rest of this spool to finish the customer quilt on my rack today. But it was not to be so. Hours were wasted trying to rework every possible way to feed this spool evenly. Turning it upside-down produces the same problem. Feeding it horizontally made it worse. I stitched and ripped out, stitched and ripped out for hours. 

This has happened before with one other spool of Aurifil. The one above is #6001 - which did this to me a few weeks ago. The one I used today was #5001, which has the same exact defect. It began as a full spool, wonderfully stitching onto the quilt. Suddenly, when half-empty, it acted up. 

Since I use Aurifil on a regular basis I can say that this problem has not happened to me with the older colors. Ever. 

I had to order a new spool from a company that does not offer me wholesale, as well as spending up to $30 for 2nd Day shipping just so I can continue this small job. Living in the middle of nowhere, I can tell you that 2nd Day shipping means that I just might see it in a week. But if I don't pay for it, I may wait 2 weeks for that one spool of thread. That I can likely only use half of.

So there you have it. I hope I have helped you avoid a train wreck in your own studio. 

I didn't get a whole lot done today on this modern quilt made with Bali Pops. As soon as I laid eyes on it, I could tell it wanted a modern quilting design. I don't have any pantographs that satisfied my ideas, so I've been making up the quilting as I go - from the front of the machine - using an idea of straight lines and circles. 

In order to make a smooth circle that didn't require backtracking, and that allowed me to do a continuous design from left to right, I chalked and marked some basic lines and circles to follow. I straddled the chalk line and made half-circles on the first pass:

Then, I completed the bottom of the design the same way as the top: 

I like to stitch from left to right, so I did that with each row - instead of doubling back right to left. I feel like I'm more in control that way. Here is a finished section:

This quilt told me that Aurifil 40 wt. on top was fine, but not in the bobbin. So I switched the bobbin out for The Bobbin Line Light Tan #13575 poly thread from Fil-Tec. I wound it onto one of my own bobbins. I believe they sell this color in prewounds now. But it behaved absolutely perfectly in the bobbin today! On top I chose color #5001 which is a warmish, light shimmery gold.

Any day that my machine produces good tension, is a day worth celebrating! 

Another quilt is finished! My customer tells me that the name of this quilt pattern is "Sausalito". I love the colors. It was a large quilt, and I had originally thought the pantograph would take a long time to stitch out. But instead it was surprisingly productive - as well as enjoyable to execute. 

Using Aurifil 40 wt. cotton in the top and the bobbin proved to be the winning combination for good tension. I used a 4.0 needle and set my SPI to 9. About a quarter-inch of the metal stem was protruding from the white rotary tension assembly - I don't know how else to describe that! Needless to say, that's a bit tighter than I usually run the top thread. But it worked for me and for this quilt. This week.

I still had to give a slight discount however because the first 2 rows had unsatisfactory tension (in my opinion). Thankfully, I only had to pick out a few areas that were unacceptable instead of the entire 2 rows. The back looks so pretty with the khaki fabric and the leafy fans, accentuated by the Hobbs 80/20 batting:

Next up is this Bali Pop quilt that is awaiting a shipment of new batting. I'm going to use Hobbs 100% natural cotton (with scrim) in this one. I am also going to try a different quilt design idea from the front of my machine. Different for me, anyway! When I load it on the rack lengthwise I want to do straight lines all the way down the piecing. Except in the yellow rectangles. In those I want to put 3 small circles. The idea is still in infancy.

In the meantime I'll spend the rest of my work day finishing up my own unfinished quilt projects while it is pouring rain outside.

And I'm going to purposely ignore the laundry, dishes, floors ....

My tension lesson today was: make sure the bobbin is wound each time only 2/3 full. That was today's secret to tension that looked like this on the back:

I'm using a pale green on the back and I love how it looks against the khaki homespun weave of the backing fabric. 

The altered pantograph is perfect now. The laser light is in the correct position more often when the design is lower on the table. And now my machine is not getting extended way out away from me when I quilt. My back is happy, and my time is more productive.

This quilt has so far been very soothing to work on. The texture of the pantograph is just so beautiful. The pantograph itself is very soothing to quilt, and it takes big bites out of the quilting area - so that each pass really accomplishes something.

I'm purposely forgetting about having to go back and restitch the first row or two. That time will come, probably tomorrow. So today I'm enjoying the way every player is doing their job.