I have had time to baste and start quilting my giant batik quilt top from Bali.
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| Saturday afternoon, a time for a pale ale and some basting. |
I wasn't sure what to do with this top. It's made of a variety of synthetic fabrics. Some feel like rayon, others are polyester knits, some have metallic bits on them. Basically, I don't really know what it's made of, and I was really nervous to start quilting it. Most of the points don't match up, so I really didn't want to make those stand out with straight line quilting. Also, there are a lot of areas where the fabric bunches up, and isn't cut evenly, so I was also worried about getting a lot of puckers on the top. I don't know how to FMQ, so I decided to quilt an off-center spiral on it with my walking foot.
This quilt is 80 x 100, so doing an off-center spiral may not have been the best idea. There were times early on when I wasn't sure I would be able to push the whole quilt through the tiny throat space on my machine. The nice thing about quilting in a spiral is that it gets much easier as the spiral gets bigger. I also like the look of it. I used Aurifil 40 wt blue variegated thread, and it seems to blend in very well. I haven't had many issues with puckers, so I'm happy.
The bad thing about it is that it takes forever. I have used 4 bobbins already and I don't think I'm halfway there yet.
I'm hoping I'll reach one of the edges today.
Also, my walking foot seems to be malfunctioning. The lever that brings the top feed dogs up and down keeps getting stuck in the up position, and it isn't pulling the top layer through. I haven't found anything about this online. Has this happened to anyone? I haven't had it for very long, but maybe there is some walking foot maintenance that I'm not aware of.
Hoping for some sunshine and time outdoors today so I can get some decent pictures of a finished quilt, fingers crossed!
Happy Sunday!
Linking with Nini and the Sea Weekly Inspiration Linky Party.
Good luck figuring out your walking foot issue. I have not heard of that before, either. The spiral is looking great. Hang in there - that is a large quilt - you are going to use a lot of bobbins of thread! :)
ReplyDeleteThe quilting looks great thus far... good call on choosing a design that doesn't accentuate little things like less than perfect points. Sometimes I really wish I'd think of stuff like that BEFORE I start quilting! No question that it's a challenge to fit a big quilt through a machine with a little throat, especially when you can't roll it up! As for your walking foot issue, I don't use one anymore (it's built in to my new machine), but I remember there being a lot of moving parts. Perhaps pop in to your Singer dealer and see if it has a screw or two loose... that happened with mine.
ReplyDeleteSo far as I know, there's no maintenance for a walking foot. It may just be a malfunction. Can you ask whoever you purchased it from for a replacement?
ReplyDeleteI really like the spiral pattern you're using - it looks so good! I haven't had any walking foot issues so I'm no help to you there. Good luck, I hope you get it fixed soon!
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