machine quilting

As soon as I got Lily's quilt pin basted

(I am considering spray basting in the future - any thoughts??)

I made a doll sized quilt out of leftover squares to practice my quilting before starting on the real deal.

It was bad.

real bad.

The tension was totally messed up.

I'd not really had problems with tension and free-motion quilting, unless I 

a) was moving the quilt too fast 

or b) had the needle going too slow

so I reasoned that it must have something to do with having the timing fixed.

Maybe they screwed it up?

So, like I do when I get frustrated with something, I set the quilt aside.

But. it's getting cooler, and Lily will be needing her quilt soon.

Yesterday, I tried more sample quilting.

Same issue - major 'eyelashing' on the bottom.

I called the repair shop and asked, was it possible that fixing the timing messed with the tension.

They said they didn't really think so, but that I could bring it in and they'd look at it.

Mmhmm.

The shop is 20 minutes away and I wasn't going to town.

So I sat my booty back down in my sewing chair.

I finally discovered that by setting my tension high (but dropping it back down to move from one block to the next)

my problems were solved.

I have about an hour left of free-motion quilting a flower in each block, 

but haven't decided what, if anything, I am doing with the sashing.

Part of my want to hand-quilt the sashing,

and part of me wants to just finish already, and save the hand stitching for Alabama Chanin garments...

I finished The Next Thing On The List.

Like I said last week, it's not one to buy, but I think it's worth a borrow from the library

and if it gets made into a movie, I'd rent it.

Of course, if you are looking for a great book to borrow, check out These Is My Words.

Now that, is a great book!

I pulled two old Catherine Marshall books off my shelves this week.

Meeting God at Every Turn, I read years ago, and snapped it up when I found it at a yard sale recently,

and I bought Something More from the thrift shop for 10 cents awhile back, but hadn't yet read it.

I like Catherine's writing style; 

 her books speak to me - without hurting my brain ;-)

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