slow un-stitching Sunday

After the frustration and tears of Saturday, I took it a bit slower on Sunday. I kept being reminded of a saying my mother had when I was a child, “more haste, less speed”. I didn’t understand it then and, half a century later, I still don’t really understand it. I gather she wanted us to move quickly but…

Cambridge Dictionaries Online explains:

said to mean that if you try to do things too quickly, it will take you longer in the end

Apparently it’s a uniquely British saying, which makes sense since my mother was born and raised in Kentish Town, north London!

Anyway, I digress. Back to the quilt I showed you in yesterday’s post. The eagle-eyed among you would have noticed that the blocks should have alternated horizontally and vertically but the column I had just attached was identical to the one beside it!

Of course, the first step to fixing it was to rip out two 66” inch seams. That was slow going because real ripping (in which I just use the seam ripper to tear at the stitches) results in seams coming undone that I want to stay sewn. Even so, I had to sew a few seams back together before proceeding. I was tempted not to but I knew I would regret it.

The pictures show 66” of ripped out sashing and the offending blocks removed from the top.

Then came some pressing with my new Semco cordless iron (WM reckons I bought it because it’s purple but I’ve wanted a cordless iron for years. And this was really inexpensive. I will talk more about it in a later post).

And lots of pinning (yes, I’ve learnt that lesson).

And moderately slow stitching.

All of which resulted in a finished top which is now basted and is in the process of being quilted on my normal machine. {Yes, I know I have a quilting frame but the garage is still hot! Despite the fact that it’s autumn, the temperature is forecast to be over 32°C (90°F) every day this week! And the humidity… phew!}

I do my basting in class as much as possible. There is a big table which I can use which saves me crawling around on my hands and knees and ensures that the backing and top are pulled tight enough (I always have a problems with one or the other if I attempt to baste either on the floor or on my quilting frame). But the best part is my teacher and the store owner, sometimes even my class mates, jump in and help which gets the job done in record time and makes it much more fun!

Now the race is on – will I get it finished in time for a big reveal for Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday (which I am hosting this week)? Or will I have something else to show? Is it possible that I will host and not have a finish?
Y’ all come back then to see!

“tagged”?

Impera Magna, over at The Adventures of the Empress of the Universe, was tagged to answer 11 questions and then posed eleven more for anyone who wanted to answer them.

I thought they were a bit of fun so here goes (I’ve reordered the questions, Freda, I hope that’s okay!):

1.  How long have you been quilting?
DD and I bought fabric and cut out our first (string) quilt (with scissors) in March 2010.

I bought a rotary cutter soon after and we cut out pieces and began Elizabeth Hartman’s Modern Sampler Quilt in April 2010 but it didn’t get finished until we began to take classes in 2011.

So, I guess the short answer is just over two years, but we have been taking it seriously for about fifteen months!

2.  What quilting/sewing tools do you find most useful?   
I would have to say my sewing machine closely followed by a stitch ripper, my rotary cutter and cutting mat. And scissors – I have four pairs in different parts of my sewing room and another pair on my quilting frame in the garage; almost all the scissors are paired with an empty container for throw-away scraps (there are other scrap bins for usable scraps).

3.  Do you belong to a quilt guild?  
DD and attended the inaugural meeting of the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild last October but have not been able to attend either of the two meetings since.

4.  Do you have a local quilt shop?  
Four – I attend weekly classes at one of them!

5.  Do you quilt your own quilts or quilt "by check"?  
So far I have quilted all of the quilts we have made – either on my sewing machine or on the quilting frame. I can’t see this changing in the near future.

6.  How many finished quilts do you have in your home?  
Three. The first two quilts we made (both seen above) for DD’s sons; and this one which belongs to the “Caring Hearts Community Quilting Group”.

7. What's the farthest you've been from home?
England, in 1983. WM and I plan a return visit to the UK in 2017 to celebrate our 60th birthdays and 40th wedding anniversary.

8. I'm going to take you out to dinner and I'm paying... where are we going and what will we have?  
Lobster please!

9. When was the last time you bought fabric?  
Tuesday – the local chain store has a discount of 30% off all fabric; this included a discount on the clearance stock which was already marked down to $4 a metre (normally $12.99-$19.99 a metre). I went to buy one and a half metres of fabric to line the bag we are starting in class next week; there was 1.9 metres on the bolt; the other fabric had 3.8 metres on the bolt and I bought the lot! At $2.40 a metre, I can never have enough neutral fabric!

10. Thread... more than 100 spools or less?  
Way less. I used to buy a different coloured thread for every project, now I have only white, black, charcoal, two tones of grey, two tones of beige and a spool of brown. Of course, I still have part-spools in other colours but way under 100 spools.

Come back tomorrow when I’ll answer the 11th question!

quilting at last (revisited)

Edited to add photos! Hurrah for “Writer”!

After illness in the family (they've all had colds or respiratory tract infections), DD and the grandsons finally visited our place yesterday. It's only been two weeks but it seems much longer!

DD and I finally got to the quilting frame! We adjusted the way we had loaded the quilt (aeons ago) and taped down the pantograph (thanks C.). It didn't take long before we realised that neither of us is capable of sewing a straight line across the top of the quilt to hold it in place! Much unpicking ensued! (This happened to me two weeks ago and to her yesterday).

So, rightly or wrongly, we decided to pin the quilt top instead of stitching it -- I think hand basting would have been faster since we pin head-to-point!

Then, we both took a deep breath, I put my foot on the pedal and she guided the machine.

The first run (across the width of the quilt) took longer than expected but turned out beautifully!

The second run was good but the last couple of inches (on the right) looked a bit wonky! As you can see, I was able to get my stitch ripper into the little pocket we accidentally created!

We thought it would be okay when the binding was put on so we did a third run. The bobbin thread ran out about two thirds of the way across so we had to stop and wind a bobbin - but why stop at one? We wound five (that's all the empty bobbins we had).
We finally finished the third run (in very poor lighting conditions) and it was then we realised that all was not okay - things on the right side were getting progressively worse and by the time we did the ninth or tenth run at the bottom of the quilt it would be a very big mess.

When we unrolled the already-quilted section I could see instantly where we had gone wrong - we had not pinned the top edge of the quilt top square and straight. Because it curved where we pinned it, it curved all the way down the right side leading to bunching and buckling!


And so, with another big breath and a deep sigh, we did the inevitable - we began unpicking those teeny, tiny stitches!
We will see if we can get away with just unpicking the blocks on the right rather than undoing all our work.

But -- the good news is: the machine behaved beautifully and our tension was spot on! Once we iron out the basics, we should get better (and quicker) at this!

quilting at last

Sorry, this page is without photos. I took them and edited them but our new modem pastes them into Blogger in various colours which are nothing like the colours of the photos I took. So, until I can figure out this latest piece of lunacy in our ongoing saga to move into the 21st century with our internet connection, there will be no photos on my posts!

Apologies again!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

After illness in the family (they've all had colds or respiratory tract infections), DD and the grandsons finally visited our place yesterday. It's only been two weeks but it seems much longer!

DD and I finally got to the quilting frame! We adjusted the way we had loaded the quilt (aeons ago) and taped down the pantograph (thanks C.). It didn't take long before we realised that neither of us is capable of sewing a straight line across the top of the quilt to hold it in place! Much unpicking ensued! (This happened to me two weeks ago and to her yesterday).

So, rightly or wrongly, we decided to pin the quilt top instead of stitching it -- I think hand basting would have been faster since we pin head-to-point!

Then, we both took a deep breath, I put my foot on the pedal and she guided the machine.

The first run (across the width of the quilt) took longer than expected but turned out beautifully!


The second run was good but the last couple of inches (on the right) looked a bit wonky!

We thought it would be okay when the binding was put on so we d
id a third run. The bobbin thread ran out about two thirds of the way across so we had to stop and wind a bobbin - but why stop at one? We wound five (that's all the empty bobbins we had).

We finally finished the third run (in very poor lighting conditions) and it was then we realised that all was not okay - things on the right side were getting progressively worse and by the time we did the ninth or tenth run at the bottom of the quilt it would be a very big mess.

When we unrolled the already-quilted section I could see instantly where we had gone wrong - we had not pinned the top edge of the quilt top square and straight. Because it curved where we pinned it, it curved all the way down the right side leading to bunching and buckling!


And so, with another big breath and a deep sigh, we did the inevitable - we began unpicking those teeny, tiny stitches!

We will see if we can get away with just unpicking the blocks on the right rather than undoing all our work.

But -- the good news is: the machine behaved beautifully and our tension was spot on! Once we iron out the basics, we should get better (and quicker) at this!

a funny way to quilt

DD and the Grandsons usually visit on Friday, stay overnight and go home on Saturday evening after dinner. We make our plans based on this schedule, but we have to fit them in around the wants and needs of a nearly-two-year-old and a demanding six month old.

This weekend we planned to get our first quilt on the frame.

MIL came for lunch on Friday and wanted to see how the quilting frame worked. We gave her a demonstration on the sample calico (muslin) we still had on the frame. Just as well I hadn't decided to take it off the previous day.

After MIL left, I ironed the backing for our Disappearing Nine Patch quilt. I took it to the garage to put on the frame - and Older grandson grabbed hold of it and wouldn't let go! He just loves all our quilting fabrics, and this one was big enough to play "boo"! Of course, I had to iron the backing all over again!

This time, I realised that the bottom of the backing wasn't quite square because I had not squared off the end of the fabric that had been cut (with scissors) in the store. I needed to wait until OG went to sleep (or Grandad took him somewhere to play) so that I could lay it out on the floor and trim it. Friday afternoon was very hot and muggy and we abandoned any attempts to get into the uninsulated garage and attach the quilt to the frame.

Instead, DD and I went into my sewing room. Not to sew - oh no! WM had shampooed the carpets on Tuesday and the boxes of stuff that had been hiding in the corner in front of the wardrobe (closet) were now stacked on my cutting table. This meant that we had clear access to the wardrobe for the first time in months so DD began to look through her stuff (it used to be DD's bedroom). She threw away piles of stuff (mostly paper from courses she has taken in the past), filled a small box with stuff for the op shop (thrift store) and managed to move all of her stuff into less than half of the space. This operation took most of Friday afternoon and Saturday morning but hey, I now have some space to store things I want in here! And with design wall rolled up, we can admire the front of the wardrobe doors (WM and I assisted an artist friend to paint these as a surprise when DD was a young teenager!)

After lunch yesterday (Saturday), WM went to our neighbour's house because OG wanted to play with their little boy and WM always supervises our grandson. DD and I took advantage and finally tried to load our first quilt onto that frame. And guess what?

It was too big for our small set up. We had to wait until WM and OG came home. I entertained OG inside the house, while DD attempted to assist her dad and look after her nearly-crawling-and-therefore-grizzly six month old!

To make a long story short, WM finally finished extending the frame just before dinner but the screws that hold the middle section together are too long and the cart that holds the machine can't pass over them smoothly so we still can't use the frame!

At least I can get my cutting table cleared off and get onto some sewing!

it appears to be working

Thanks for the advice on dealing with the looping issues on the back of my quilting.

This morning, I brought the machine inside, took it apart, and cleaned it once again.

I wound another bobbin using another spool of thread (which has been using successfully on another machine).

I set the machine for straight stitching - feed dogs up, 1/4 foot on, tension dial set to 4 (where it worked yesterday) - and gave it a test run: perfect stitching top and bottom through two layers of homespun.
I lowered the feed dogs and changed to the quilting foot (which had been lightly oiled as per the instructions in the Brother manual).

But I ran into the a problem - holding both thread above the foot put strain on everything! What was I thinking? This must be the cause of all my looping problems! When my former teacher said bring both threads to the top of the fabric, she obviously meant to hold them under the foot! (not on top of it).

So, I let go of those top threads and put them under the foot, then ran the same two layers of homespun through the machine in a straight line, and lo and behold... tiny, perfect stitches top and bottom.

I changed my two layers of home spun for a quilt sandwich and eased the pressure on the presser foot. I proceeded to try and write my name in cursive. Not bad at all  (my FMQ is improving)
- and still no problems with the machine looping on the back.

So it was time for the big test.

WM took the machine back out to the garage and we loaded it back onto the quilting frame. Making sure that the threads were under the foot plate, I began stitching slowly - such big ugly stitches as you've never seen (unless you've tried FMQ or using a quilting frame or machine)! I sped up the foot pedal and my arms and wow! Things worked - no thread snapping.
Yes, I realise the tension is not quite right but I was more interested in seeing of the machine would work after being re-threaded, re-bobbined, etc!

The real test was what was happening underneath - yep, no loops!

Hurrah!

Perhaps tomorrow DD and I can load our first quilt and get on with it! (We'll practice some stitching first to sort out the tension issues, don't worry).

Stay tuned! And thanks!

advice needed from experienced quilters

(and a gasp/giggle for non-quilters when you see the photo at the end!)

On the weekend, DD and I completely cleaned the Brother PQ-1500S that came with my quilting frame (which I bought on Ebay several months ago).

I rethreaded the machine with new, high quality (Gutermann) cotton thread, checked the bobbin and made sure it was inserted correctly.

I sewed a straight seam. The top tension was a bit loose so I tightened it slightly.

I sewed another straight seam through two layers of homepsun - beautiful!

I sewed another straight seam through a quilt sandwich - even more beautiful!

I changed feet. I dropped the feed dogs. I attempted some free motion quilting. The problems with stitch length and wonkiness are due to my inexperience - the machine appeared to be working just fine.

I carried the machine out to the quilting frame in the garage.

I moved the needle just inside the two selvages of my two layers of calico (muslin) on which we have had successful quilting practice before.

I hand-lowered the needle to pull the bobbin thread through to the top.

I sewed three or four stitches in place to anchor the threads and I tried to sew a straight line.

Why then, having worked brilliantly in the kitchen, did I get this on the bottom of the layers before the top thread snapped?

Please, please help me!!

more fun with sewing machines

Yesterday was very hot and humid. DD brought the Brother 1500S machine in from the garage where it has been in use on the quilting frame. We have had some issues with it - notably the top thread keeps breaking. (Any hints?)

While I quilted the change mat I made the day before, DD cleared the kitchen workbench (well lit by a skylight) and opened up Big Brother. Using a standard machine cleaning brush, she took a fair amount of lint and loose small threads from the area under the feed dogs. Then I gave her a pipe cleaner and a straw (something I'd seen on a blog somewhere some months ago) and she was able to reach further back into the machine.

WM then put machine oil in the six insertion points and I put the machine back together. (Isn't team work great?) I carefully threaded the machine with the manual open beside me and set the tension dial halfway. My first attempt on a piece of scrap fabric showed that the bobbin thread was couched, not sewn as it should be. So I changed the tension and before long I had a perfect row of stitches

I grabbed a sample quiting sandwich that I have used in the past to practice free motion quilting, it sewed beautifully. I then lowered the feed dogs, changed to the darning (quilting) foot and attempted some FMQ. It wasn't great but the machine performed as it should.

We have not yet had a chance to try it out on the quilting frame (it was too hot in the uninsulated garage) but hope that the clean and oil have done the trick.

Back in the sewing room I pieced the last five disappearing nine patch blocks from this top into a panel. I then measured and cut some fabric for the rest of the backing. It would seem that inserted panels are my "look of the moment"! They are certainly a classy way of getting around the fact that quilting fabric is not always wide enough in itself to be used as backing!

held by DD while standing on the lounge




The photo below shows some of the detail of panel.

The fabric used for the backing was a donated fabric - two metres from "The American Woman's Home Collection" (pattern #23998). It was very soft and may be too thin for a backing fabric but it was all I had that was big enough.

So, we have two tops and backings ready to be quilted when the chance arises. It will be exciting to quilt a real project instead of practising on calico!

ETA I am linking up with Fun Thread's Sew What Monday

What's the buzz (tell me what's happening)?

Random updates from our household:

weather:
It's still about 6°-10°C (10°-18°F) cooler here than it should be at this time of year so it certainly doesn't feel like Christmas is a week away.
Moree has been flooded again and the roads I took to get mum home two weeks ago are closed again.
The eastern side of Australia is under the influence of La Nina - rain and floods are more likely. When we are under the influence of an Il Nino weather system we have high temperatures and droughts!

Christmas
The presents are bought and wrapped.
Most of the food is bought and stored - I still have to buy lollies (candy) and chocolates. I will leave the salad vegetables until Christmas Eve.
Puddings made yesterday and boiling as I write this.Older Grandson loved throwing the threepenny pieces into the mixture - he was having so much fun no one thought to take any photos!
Cards to be written and posted today.
Christmas lights up on the outside of the house.
Curtains and windows in lounge (living) room and dining room need to be washed before decorations can go up - if only it would stop raining!
A "live" tree will be purchased next week and decorated on Christmas Eve. It will stay up until 6th January - the twelfth day of Christmas.

Family health
Younger Grandson has had lots of tests - they have all come back normal so no cause for his febrile convulsion has been found. He had an EEG on Monday - we don't have the results of that yet.
Son-in-law was off work last week for three days with a respiratory tract infection.
DD rang on Friday morning saying that she couldn't visit because she had caught it.
SIL dropped Older Grandson at our place then went to work. By lunch time OG had a runny nose and a cough and was feeling miserable.
DD and OG are now on antibiotics. YG is sniffling but not on antibiotics.
Yesterday, WM stayed home from work. He saw a doctor in the afternoon and has today off too. He has - you guessed it - a respiratory tract infection.

Stitching
I am working on "in-the-ditch" quilting my Hunters' Cabin quilt. I'm about halfway.
DD and I still need to piece backs for the two quilt tops I showed you earlier this week so that we can get them on the frame and quilt them.
I am about twelve rows from finishing Blanket for William - then I will need some warmer weather to get the 10ply (Aran) cotton blocked.
I have reached the cast off the first Merlot toe-up sock (Ravelry link); I need to check the instructions for Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off. I won't hurry because then I'll have to cast on the second sock and, although I love the look, I find Judy's Magic Cast On very fiddly on dpns and my circular needles are otherwise occupied!

And we have no hot water! The element was replaced about two months ago so they think it might be the thermostat this time! Someone will be out to have a look this afternoon!

another quilt top done

Some months ago I mentioned (in this post) that I had been given a pile of disappearing nine patch blocks and asked to "do something with them".

The history of these blocks is that someone gave them to my sewing teacher who gave them to Margaret (the founder of Caring Hearts Community Quilting Group) who gave them to me when I joined the group.

I didn't know what to do with them so they languished in my sewing room, being shifted from one place to another (they were always in the way),  including a short stint on the design wall, before finally being put away "somewhere safe" (you know that place, don't you? LOL).

Last week when I wanted them I couldn't find them. When I came home and started looking again, they were staring me right in the face. I took them out of that "safe place" and put them in another - and promptly forgot again where that was!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, when I found them late last night I put them in my sewing bag and today they went up on the design wall in the classroom.

A couple of hours later, I had this:The reason I didn't know what to do with them was there is such a mixture of fabrics: florals (both large and small), novelties, geometrics, paisleys, and text. Here is a sample in what is now the top right of the quilt.

Now to measure it and make a back including the five left over blocks.

I think DD and I might quilt this one first - it has less seams than the other so less places to break a needle!

Any tips?

second top finished in five days

I must be on a roll!

For your viewing pleasure I present the completed top I have called "Scrappy Strings " because it's made of string blocks made from scraps of fabric. (poetic I'm not)

We chose a very dark brown sashing because, of all the colour choices available at the Big Box Store, it worked best with our blocks. I had anticipated using a crimson-red because most of the fabrics had some kind of red in them and most of those were more crimson than orange, but the red we needed wasn't available.

Brown is a relative of red (if mixed with yellow and black) and this brown had a slight tendency to green which is also in quite a few of the blocks.

We will quilt this one on the quilting frame. Apparently DD spends "idle moments" (like when she's feeding the baby) practising quilting doodles for this quilt so it's time to hand it over to her (first I have to piece a back!)

I'm not too sure that I like the look of this kind of scrap quilt - I think I like a more controlled look.

So our next quilt, which I have already started cutting, is in shades of blue, blue-green and purple: many different fabrics but a more-controlled palette.

I wonder if I'll like this one better?

Do you like scrappy quilts? It's okay to say you don't - I genuinely want to know!

Scrappy Strings II

DD and I have been practising using the quilting frame with two layers of calico. Rather than "waste" more calico, we continued on the calico we had already used for practice! Here is a sample of my freehand stippling in red thread (the purple is the old practice) working from right to left.

Here is a sample of DD's freehand work - pretty good, don't you think?


Thanks to a hint from Cindy of Tops to Treasures, I bought three metres of beautiful blue polar fleece to use instead of batting but it is so pretty we can't bring ourselves to use it! Being the end of spring, the Big Box Craft Store has very little polar fleece in stock - they need the space for summer fabrics.

So, DD and I decided what we needed to do was to make a quick and easy quilt top, then get some batting and practice on a "real"quilt.

To that end, we began making string blocks. Each is 9 3/4 inches square, and made up of six or seven strips. Here are the first five (of 24) that we have completed. Since I took these photos, four more blocks have been finished.I spent several hours, cutting and pressing strips and matching them into pairs. This pile doesn't look like much but it consists of 80 pairs of matched strings, plus some strings that have been sewn into pairs and are now pairs waiting to be joined to pairs.

This pile was all sewn togehter on Tuesday. DD and I worked together, I cut and press, and DD chain pieced - the production line keeps us both happy and is quick and efficient.

Hopefully it won't be long before we have a quilt top to work on!

(And hopefully by the time you read this I am on my way home from mum's).

the weekend that was

This past weekend was one of the busiest weekends I have had in a long time.

I've already told you that DD and I went to "high tea" on Sunday and visited the discount book store on the way home.

There's a post coming next Sunday about our newest project: a scrappy string quilt top; the why and wherefore will be given then.

So I guess that leaves Friday and Saturday.

On Friday it was 38*C (100*F) here. DD and I had great intentions of spending some time using the quilting frame but the garage, as I may have told you before, is not insulated so it was way too hot to be out there most of the day! We did spend some time out there in the cooler evening and some of what we accomplished is also shown in next Sunday's post. (I'm not trying to tease you; there is a reason for the delay and it will become apparent over the next day or two!)

We visited the Big Box Craft Store because I received an email to say they had 50% off selected quilting fabrics. When we got there it was off those in the $16.99 and $19.99 ranges only; and, since we had no notion of what we wanted, we bought nothing! Yes, you read that right; we drove across town to a fabric sale and bought zip! zilch! nada!!

On Saturday I took DD to a discount fashion store where she bought two tops and a new skirt. We then drove to the monthly meeting of the Blue Mountains group of the Knitters' Guild of NSW. We had two retailers there - one was selling cashmere blend yarns and one was selling alpaca fleece, yarns and items. Again we bought nothing! Aren't we good? (No wonder I didn't feel so bad buying all those books on Sunday).

DD was voted in as the new treasurer for our knitting group - congratulations to her and the new convenor and new secretary.
D. you've done a great job over the last three years and I'm sorry that you were not properly thanked!

On Saturday night WM, DD and I went to a local production of "Pygmalion". This is one of my favourite plays (and one of my favourite musicals in it's other incarnation: "My Fair Lady").

photo from stagewhispers.com.au
showing Bob Sparrow (Henry Higgins), Ali Gore (Eliza Doolittle)
and Alan Pope (Colonel Pickering)

The costumes were great, and the acting was pretty good. The one character that stood out for me was Mrs Higgins, plated by Robyn Pope - what a fabulous performance. Not a falter with her lines and she just played the part with what appeared to be consummate ease.

Well done to all the Glenbrook Players.

don't let me near the discount book store

Yesterday, DD and I had "high tea" for lunch. I won't go into the details - it is sufficient to say that it was basically the same as when I took mum in September. You can read about that on this post.

After lunch, we had to pass the discount bookstore to return to the car.

Well, when I say "pass", I mean, we had to go into the book store.

And I came out with a few books (as you do).

If you read Quilting Arts magazine, you'll recognise this one; the author of the book, Robbi Joy Eklow, writes an essay for each edition of the magazine under the same title.

I nearly didn't buy the next one except for the second sentence in the introduction:

The concepts presented also apply to quilting on a short arm machine or a domestic machine using a quilting frame.

A quick flick through the book convinced me I wanted to own this one.

  

I bought a few others but they're for Christmas presents so I can't show them here!

Are you giving books as gifts this Christmas?

that was the weekend that was

On Saturday evening, I was reading and commenting on the some of the many blogs on my reading list when my computer froze!

I rebooted it and got an error message - "looking for a driver" - before it froze again.

I rebooted and found a new symbol (icon?) on my computer - right where the strength of Internet connection is usually shown. I clicked on this strange new symbol. "No connection available."

WM and DD looked at the computer but there was nothing for it. I turned the computer off and used WM's slower, older computer to finish reading the blogs I was reading.

Today my tower went to the computer shop. Some kind of new card was put in it. And now I have connection to the Internet again! Hurrah!

DD and I were out on Saturday. When we came home we did some quilting on the "new" frame. The Brother machine works best with the top and bobbin threaded with Gutermann cotton thread; cheaper threads and Gutermann polyester break!

All practice so far has been done on calico (which is called "muslin" in the USA I believe) top and back with no batting.

We didn't get any pantographs with the quilting frame so we created our own.

Here are my attempts to follow the laser light accurately (not too bad for a complete novice!)

The lack of symmetry is exactly how I drew it!

I enjoyed doing this one the most!

On Saturday, DD and I went to the Glenbrook Spring Fair. We looked around the fair in the morning, had some lunch and volunteered our time (and Younger Grandson for added cuteness) at the stall being held to raise money for Caring Hearts Community Quilting Group. There were five of us volunteering. In three hours we sold less than $100 worth of goods - between us! I certainly hope the team that volunteered for the morning sold more!

DD was very disappointed; not one of the wheat bags we had made and donated was sold. The coasters she had so carefully made were also unsold at the end of the day.

So, a frustrating weekend but, as is often the case, it had some wonderful moments. I leave you with a picture (taken in Glenbrook) that can't help but make you go "awwww!"

Younger Grandson aged 20 weeks

We make 'em cute in our family!! LOL

this, that and a winner!

Just some bullet points today -- a little bit of this and that!

• Today DD and I are going to attempt to do some practice on the quilting frame. Thanks to all the readers who wrote tips and advice for us - we have taken it all into consideration and will let you know how we go this time.

• The last of the twenty five blocks that DD and I sent to Jan Mac at Oz Comfort Quilts last month have been used in the quilt shown below. The block on the bottom right and the the block two above it were made by either DD or I.

photo borrowed from http://ozcomfortquilts.blogspot.com/2011/11/time-for-three.html

• The winner of the three novels by Claire Donohue is

... Sana Saroti!

Congratulations Sana -- please let me have your postal address and I'll get them into the post as soon as possible next week.

• And I'll finish with another fabulous quote I've taken from Bonnie Hunter's website.

update on "frustration"

Thanks for all the support and helpful tips in the comments section of my last post. I thought I would update you on our "progress"!

The quilting frame remains the same length. WM was very tired (and cross) yesterday so, rather than take it apart and put it back together again, he came up with this solution! It works!

We will be getting a new copy of the DVD to watch but in the meantime we took the DVD and a laptop to the garage so that we could set up the quilting frame correctly. The DVD and the laptop did not want to play nicely, so we ended up just doing it as we remembered (and as seemed logical to us)!

We only used two layers of calico fabric (I think it's called "muslin" in USA) with no batting. Batting is very expensive so, until we get a feel for the machine, we'll just practice without it! When we have an idea of what we're doing, we'll sew together some batting scraps and practice with that. Then it will be time for the real thing!

The quilting frame was built for a Husqvarna Mega Quilter but I bought a Brother 1500 as part of the package. Here are the controls on the quilting frame: the knob regulates the speed. You can see the cable coming out of the control handle. This is the three-pin plug that goes directly from the controls into the Mega Quilter.

Since this doesn't fit into the Brother we have to use the foot pedal which is a bit more clumsy.

We have managed to break one needle so far and have had threads tangle in the bobbin case which meant we had to remove the machine from the quilting frame, carry it inside (from the garage) to a suitable workspace, and take off the the needle plate. We managed to removed the offending thread and gave the machine a much needed and thorough cleaning while we were at it.

The needle threader is broken on the Brother so we have to thread the old fashioned way which would be okay if the thread (Gutermann) didn't keep snapping all the time!

So, after several hours we managed to "quilt" two layers of calico 36" x 6"! Not much to show for the hours we had spent! This photo is DD's very first play! She wouldn't let me show her anything - she just wanted to "have a go!"
This next photo shows my quilting as I came back between the shapes DD had made. On the left you can see where we stopped because the thread had broken yet again!
Are we having fun? Not yet!

Are we learning many things? Yes, patience among them!