What Makes A Quilter Cry????

What makes a quilter cry? Hmmmmm lots of things

tension
thread breaking
loops on bottom/top
poor piecing
wavy borders
tearing the top/backing
needle breaking
knocking out the timing

My all time favorite is ........ are you ready ...........



quilting in pins ....... yep you got it and I did it ...... not one, not two but FIVE


I'm a pantograph girl ..... I have a huge stock of pantographs. I've only quilted one quilt in 6yrs that I would consider custom ... it was a going away gift .... it's HERE

So I have these two (2) Stacked Coins to quilt. I decide to quilt them at the same time on Prince Charming. I piece the one backing in the four patch pattern and the other backing is a school of fish. Of course, when you do this and using a pantograph it has to be the same pantograph for both. I tried one time using two different pantographs and let me tell you .... that was a mistake.



From the back .......

This is one of my absolute favorite pantographs .... Ebb & Flow by Lorien Quilting. It can take on many designs .... flowing water, wind, waving flag and etc. Now you're asking yourself what is that ruler and envelope for ........ that tells me where one quilt ends and the other one starts ... smart I am (well sometimes).

See what a nice pattern it makes on the quilt. This pattern is so flowing .... like slow dancing.


Now my Prince Charming has the "M" bobbin. Don't know what an "M" bobbin is .... well it's almost heaven. The "M" holds 3-4 times more thread than the standard "L" bobbin. I love my "M". Now both of these quilts were 44inches x 54inches .... times two equals 88 by 108 ..... pretty big. I ran out of bobbin thread with 1 row to go .... can you believe it.

See that purple instrument .... that where the bobbin thread ended. I have to restart.

Can you see where I restarted ........

I'm getting better at this technique

I'm finished quilting so I cut away the excess batting before I take the two quilts off the frame. I cut it close with my backing fabric .... only about 5 inches to the total end.

Here are the two quilts off the frame and still attached to each other.

While removing the pins from the zipper I stuck myself ....... what I say ........ Oh my gosh I can't believe it I've stitched in a pin .... what now??? Oh no I scream ... there are five (5) yes five pins quilted into the quilt.

How on earth did I ever manage to miss them while quilting a pantograph from the back of Prince Charming? Now that is one for "Ripley's Believe It Or Not".

So I sit here thinking what am I going to do ..... I'm thinking ... I'll have to rip out part of the quilting and redo it. But then I take a good look at the quilting pattern ..... I was able to slide the pins around, navigating around the stitched pattern and push them to the edge, clip a single thread and push out the pins. Someone was watching over me.

Here are the five (5) pins. I use corsage pins to pin to my leaders.

The quilts turned out very nice and I'm so happy. These will be donated to a Charity group.