slow going

Well.

I'm  linking up with Elizabeth's with needle and thREAD.

Lest anyone be tempted to believe that I live in a fairy tale land of nothing but beautiful stitches,

let me tell you that seam ripping has replaced stitching in most of my sewing time, 

and no reading is happening.

(I'd love to listen to a free audibook while I work though ~ any suggestions??)

First, I had a bit of trouble getting the hang of pebbling on the quilt

(practicing on my little sample sandwich was easier...)

Then there was tension issues. again...

And then, I sewed merrily along with my quilt folded under without my knowledge for, oh, 20% of a bobbin or so.

So. Lots and lots of tearing out stitches. 

Then, we have T's quilt, which I picked up when I got frustrated with the detour quilt.

I wanted to try out the 'hand-look stitch' on my Juki. 

(which I do intend to post about someday, but I am still hoping for warm fuzzy feelings towards her to develop) 

I've done tons of searching, but can't really find anything that tells me how to do it,

except I knew I needed invisible thread

(where exactly (bobbin or top) to put that thread was questionable, as I've heard it both ways)

Adding to my inability to find suitable instruction, is the fact that little miss Juki is a bit touchy in the tension department.

I was delighted when my test piece came out looking beautiful!

The bottom didn't look great, but it was good enough.

So I moved onto the quilt.

Bis mistake.

Huge.

I couldn't get a nice looking stitch and the invisible thread (which does, in fact, go on top) kept breaking.

I played more with tension, wasn't really sure which way I should go - tighten or loosen - so I tried both

but neither gave satisfactory results on the actual quilt.

The test pieces, again, looked perfect.

What is up with that?!

Since I had suspicions that I might not be happy with the hand look stitch 

(my research did tell me it was tricky - but that was about it)

I'd ordered a 12 wt thread, just in case.

In case you are counting, yes - that's 3 different $9 spools of thread for one project...

After tearing out (again) the crappy looking hand-look stitches, I switched to the 12 weight on top.

And popped in a new needle (topstitch 90/14, which is what is recommended for the thread)

It sews nicely (if I go really slow) for a few minutes, then likes to skip stitches....

Ready to pull my hair out, I went back to my good buddy, Google.

Spraying your quilt with a silicone lubricant was a possible solution,

so I spent another hour or so looking for a fabric safe silicone spray....

Then I remembered my sewing aid stuff and tried some of that on my thread and needle

which improved the performance, so long as I go slow and reapply often.

I need to buy more.

I'm not real thrilled with how it's looking,

but I don't really want to talk myself into tearing out everything I've sewn

(about 1/4 of the quilt)

and hand-quilting the whole thing

(which would look so much nicer, but will take me for e ver)

I sent T a picture and he said it was beeyotiful (which really is all that matters) but I'm not convinced yet.

Oddly enough, I went to bed last night dreaming of cutting out a new alabama chanin top.