Thursday, July 21, 2011

Learning new skills in quilting

Just over a year ago I made my first ever quilt and at about the same time I made this one which incorporated a stitchery centre. Over the last year I've practiced on being more adventurous and improving upon what I've have learned. Learning to piece fabric together better has been hampered by my sewing machine, it's a great little machine but it doesn't feed the fabric too well and it gets caught up, on top of that no matter what I did the tension adjustment wasn't working well and the cotton would become too tight and break. Very frustrating indeed, at one point I nearly washed my own mouth out with soap!! Joe happened to be passing when I was having one of my hissy fits and asked me what was wrong,
I said 'I need a new machine because this *#@!^% one is doing my head in!'
'Okay' he said!
So before he could change his mind he was shoved into the car and we went and bought me a brand new machine! Yessiree it's mighty pretty and I used it for the first time today at craft.
We are making a round robin quilt made up of strips, not the taking yer clothes off kind of strip I might add, cos I know what you lot can be like and I just wanted to get that straight from the start. Although I'm not adverse to a little naked quilting, whatever rocks yer boat I say, but at this stage for me to quilt naked it could end up in disaster as I doubt I couldn't concentrate on piecing together little bits of fabric with 1/4 inch seam and not get me magnificent boobies caught up somehow. Anyway that doesn't bear thinking about and I don't think I have enough experience yet to attempt anything that risky. Perhaps a future post on the health and safety implications of naked quilting could be worth considering, I mean you can't be too careful can you?
What was I talking about? Ah yes, a round robin quilt...each person makes a strip, made up of any style, technique etc they wish(as long as it is with the size limit agreed upon before starting) then when that's completed we all pass our strip onto the next person who will then add another strip, and this process is repeated until each person has contributed to each persons quilt. You end up with your original strip back plus, in this case, 5 other strips. How you finish the quilt is up to you. I hope that makes sense, because I've just reread it and my head hurts! Time for a gin!
The round robin quilt theme is Christmas

New skill learned today, making a star from ridiculously small triangles, but because I have a brand new machine that purrs and doesn't eat my work, it was a breeze.
My first strip will be based upon this bell pull, it may or may not have the red edging strip, that's still to be decided. Also it may not be as long as in the picture, due to size constraints I may have to stop at the 'Love' block. So some new piecing techniques here for me, plus some applique which will allow me to try out the blanket stitch function on the new machine.
I know I said no more new projects until I had finished all my UFO's but I only have two weeks to complete this before I have to pass it on. It could be a lot of fun but the pressure is on, I'm having to live up to the expectations of some very experienced and clever quilters. I'll keep you updated.

Oh! And meet my new machine!
A Brother NS30

4 comments:

  1. I need a new machine as well, got my eye on a shiny Janome.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They're good machines, a new machine is just a dream to use, such a difference :D

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  3. Anonymous2:48 pm

    Beautiful!! I like the machine, too.

    ReplyDelete

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