Saturday, April 26, 2014

Un-quilting, re-quilting, and Mr Wazoo's beard

Today will be a rip-it day. I finished the interior portion of a customer quilt and began feathering the border, but the thread choice was really wrong and looked bad, in my opinion. Now, I will be taking out a feather that covers half the top border. Rats! I figure it's better than giving the customer a quilt with a glaring error on it. Should take a few hours, but with some lively bluegrass and folk music playing, it shouldn't be too painful. I will take a picture of it and another after I fix the problem. For now, I will be in 'un-quilting' mode.
Stay tuned!

Oh rats... I don't like this at all.

The design and thread  just aren't nice. So I took it all out.

Here is the quilt all done

This looks waaaay better! Brown thread and a swirly feather border treatment.

One month beard on Mr Wazoo. Looking good!

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Back to work!

With the repairs done and a sample quilt done without a problem, I am back to work. The sample was from my unfinished stash of tops I've finished at various retreats. Some blue binding on and it is almost done! Miss Marple and I will pass the time while I sew down the binding.
I have loaded a king size customer custom quilt, so it will be a couple of days before I'm finished with it. She has a diagram of how she wants it done, so I will be charting new territory; lots of straight lines. Oh well, get out the rulers and quilt!
Later gators!

quilting sample piece all finished

Pantograph is called Quirky

A bit of the back. Nice even stitches. Yippee!!

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Hooray for Mr Wazoo!!

Well, he got the quilt done for me, but my machine has been quiet today. I sewed a quilt top for Love Quilts at my evening guild, made the back and binding, and then hung it up with the other 30 or so quilt tops waiting to be quilted. At least the retreat sample is almost done. I'll get the binding sewn down tonight after I do a customer binding. Deadliest Catch starts tonight, and then a Miss Marple on Netflix and I should be finished!
Time to make supper. The man needs some pampering after his last couple of days.

Retreat sample all quilted, with it's binding on

Pantograph, Splat!

Soft plaid backing. See the cool striped binding?

Leftover bits made it to the back, too.

The binding will be totally cool after I sew it down. The entire quilt is from my stash.

Limping along with the quilting machine

Good old Mr Wazoo fixed my machine enough to try it out on another of my own quilts. There was a lot of thread breakage, but that could be due to me re-adjusting my tensions. Once you mess with the longarm, you have to re-set everything again and tweak it for optimum quilting. I think we're getting there.
After finishing the first one,(orange and green) I put the retreat sample quilt back on with not so good results. I am so frustrated with this I could scream, but what good would screaming do? Today, we will make more adjustments and I will be un-sewing the quilting I put in the blue and white quilt. I am going to try a different backing and see if that helps. My seams are nice and flat, and all the fabrics are regular cotton fabric, so I don't have an idea what could be the problem with this quilt!
At least one of us has a machine in good working order.

Practice quilt

The quilting went along pretty well, except for some thread breakage

I do like the backing fabric

Here it is with it's black and white stripe binding on and finished.

I also got the binding done on this one. (note the blue and white quilt still waiting on the frame)

2 wild and crazy quilts!

and their backings

Ready for some kids to enjoy.

Mr Wazoo (with the beard getting fuzzier by the day) hard at work while I take pictures and blog. Poor fellow.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Trouble in Paradise...

I finished the quilt top this morning and made a lovely pieced backing. Things were going swimmingly; quilt loaded, pattern chosen and bobbins wound. Off to the races! Clickety, clickety, whackety, BANG!! Titanium needle broke, tore the top and backing, left a trail of tiny blue dots of backing fabric thread, and stopped all quilting for the duration. Rats.
Mr Wazoo leapt into action, leaving his quilt to languish on the frame, while he doctored my machine...all day. Everything he tried didn't work out the problem. He had the repair video going on the laptop and went through all the steps over and over. Around 6 o'clock, I made him stop and have dinner. Tomorrow we'll start again and, hopefully, get the machine humming again.
On the bright side, I did get the binding made and sewn on my cheddar and Guatemalan fabric quilt, paid the bills, changed the sheets and did two loads of wash. I watched the first two lessons of this year's Craftsy block of the month. They are all about color; right down my alley. I also cut the sashing pieces for my Z's quilt for sewing on Wednesday.
My day just wasn't right without quilting. I sure hope the repairs go well tomorrow...
Stay tuned for up-dates.

Quilt all ready to go...until

Yikes! This rip was made by the needle break on the front and the back. I picked out the same motif twice before unloading the quilt and loading up muslin to try quilting after each repair.

These dots are broken threads pulled to the top from the backing fabric. The machine runs so fast, it was a second before I could turn it off when quilting. The damage was done.