Day 1

Day 1
Well today I decided to bite the bullet & start quilting the Harry Potter quilt I made for my son. I had intended to give it to him for Christmas (yes last Christmas) but because I kept putting off the quilting it didn't happen. The top was made, I'd even layered it, just needed to take the plunge......
These are the tips I came up with after working on the quilt the first day. I have called them the 'What NOT to do when machine quilting Rules.'
1. I remembered reading a tip which said, 'Don't bother closing all your safety pins it takes a lot of time & you can easily remove them if they are open as you quilt.' WRONG if you leave them open they fall out, get caught up on each other & stick in you. So after a very short time sewing I stopped to do up all the pins. Oh & to pick up all the ones off the floor.
2. Don't wear a bangle it gets caught on the pins whether they are open or closed.
3. Don't attempt to quilt around shapes while using a walking foot as you can't see where you are going. This is true of my walking foot which has a metal strip across just in front of the needle blocking your view of what is coming up.
4. Don't be tempted to use your ordinary foot so you can see where you are going, unless you enjoy doing frog stitch.
5. Don't have a major clean up in your sewing room the week before you quilt so you can't find your other walking foot to see if it has the same metal strip.
6. Don't let the cat stay in the room if it is easily offended by bad language.
7. Not sure about this but I think attempting to machine quilt while stone, cold sober could be a mistake. Unfortunately I'm stuck with that as I don't drink.

& finally a DO -

DO have a friend drop around for a cuppa & a chat so you can put it off until tomorrow, when ds is at school.

So now I have decided to machine quilt the straight bits with the walking foot & hand quilt all the shaped bits eg, Harry's clothes, hair, face etc.

Luckily I decided to send my tips to an on-line quilt group. One lovely lady said if you have a Bernina it does have a foot without the annoying bar.
OK back to the sewing room for a full-on search for the missing foot. Finally found it, in the last place I looked, well of course it was the last place I looked, I'd hardly go on looking after I found it!!!!! Damn! it has the stupid bar too but I also checked the 'empty' box my original foot had been in & found there was a replacement piece without the bar. I was really good & actually read the instructions for changing it over & hey presto walking foot without stupid bar.
Can't wait to get stuck in tomorrow's sewing.

So now I'm settling down for a cuppa & a browse through the latest Quilting Arts mag which arrived today.
love, Molly