Thursday, January 27, 2011

Quilting Progress


Michele asked to see the family friendly quilting, and I am happy to oblige.  As you can see, I quilted an S shape on the left side.  Then, I turned the quilt around and finished out the figure 8 as shown on the right side.  Thank you Paula for the advice.  I am now finished with quilting all of the rows. I am now working on the columns.  There are fewer of them, but they are longer. It is turning out quite nicely.  Even though I could picture what I was doing in my mind, it is always a pleasant surprise when it comes out in real life.

The pros of this quilting design is
  • that it is easy.  It is a nice step up from straight stitching.  You can probably use a walking foot, depending on how big your block is, and not even need to free motion quilt it. 
  • Also, as mentioned before, there are no threads to hide, except for where I ran out of bobbin thread.
  • it yields a family friendly design.
  • Looks more impressive than straight stitching, but it really isn't any more work, and isn't harder.
  • Don't have to draw quilting lines
  • can practice getting an even stitch length
  • don't need to sew a straight line - stitch in the ditch is harder
  • The seams definitely have been quilted into flat submission
The cons is that
  • you are sewing only in one direction, which means you have to stop and adjust the sandwich and your hands regularly. Which is a pain if you don't have needle down on your machine
  • The stitches are closer where I was sewing slower to end in the needle down position.  Not sure if that means the intersections are sturdier (smaller stitches) or weaker (lots of holes in a small space).
  • not drawing quilting lines isn't as neat as drawing them on - if you wanted it neater, you could at least mark where you wanted the stitches to intersect
  • free motion quilting can yield uneven stitch length, depending on your expertise
Edited to add: Another con for this method is that since your sewing is directional, you will have times when the entire bulk of the quilt will have to be on the right side of where you are quilting. Of course, you don't have to leave all of it in the throat, you can move as much as you can behind the machine. Since I have a lap quilt, it isn't too bad, but I think a bed quilt would be much harder.

2 comments:

Allie said...

It looks great!!! That's my favorite kind of quilting too, with no ends to tie in - I zoom zoom one way, then zoom zoom the other. Good job!

Sunshine said...

Hi Shasta, great review. My machine doesn't have needle-down and I'm not missing it. It's convenient, but not necessary. Just stop sewing, leave your left hand to stabilize the quilt and use your right to turn the knob on your machine forward to put the needle in the down position (don't go backwards, or you'll get a bobbin mess). Also, I always make sure that my quilt wouldn't move on it's own anyway, i.e. supported by my lap, or the ironing board set up next to my sewing space to hold up the bulk of the quilt - no problems with shifting if the needle is up.

Cheers,
Christine