Beautiful background

This delightful, summery quilt, made by Barbara McClellan, posed a challenge: What to do with all that white space. We had decided to put seashells in between the blocks and frame them with 3 concentric squares. Tiny echo quilting around the shells makes them pop up like trapunto.

The remaining white space was still considerable, and needed a filler with a substantial pattern. To drive home the tropical island theme, we found a background design, shown in the photo below, that resembles shells. This one is from Irena Bluhm's book, Blooming Background Designs. It starts with a small teardrop that is echoed closely over and over, varied in size and direction. It's fun to do, it creates a wonderful texture and it easily adapts to irregular spaces. I used So Fine thread by Superior.

In the rest of the quilt, I crosshatched the pineapples, and veined and outlined the leaves. I quilted double continuous curves in the outer triangles, a wavy line in the frame, and two overlapping and interlocking rows of figure eights in the outer border.

Thread tension

I am back from my long absence from this blog, inspired to talk about thread tension and another kind of tension: specifically, deadlines.

I ran out of clear thread, which I use sometimes for ditch quilting, and I decided to try Superior Thread's MonoPoly. As is the case any time I change the equation on my longarm, I had adjustments to make. But this time was ridiculous.

It all worked out in the end. I appealed to Superior for help, because I've been quilting professionally for more than 10 years, and I thought I had tension figured out. There is always something new to learn, and in this case it was that I needed a larger needle and almost no tension at all.  And I put Superior's Bottom Line thread in the bobbin. A stronger thread can snap the top thread.

Now I adjust the tension all the time, the top and the bobbin tension. You change brands, thicknesses, color, etc., you have to adjust the tension. Thinking you can machine quilt without these adjustments is unrealistic. Your machine vendor and/or repair people undoubtedly have warned you never to go near that bobbin tension screw, but it has to be done or you'll drive yourself crazy and you'll hate machine quilting. (Suggested reading: pages 50-53 in Diane Gaudynski's Guide to Machine Quilting, AQS 2002)

Then I quilted with metallic thread. Hadn't done that in a while, which sent me digging through files for the long e-mails from the friendly people at Sulky whom I asked for help years ago. Put in a new and bigger needle and loosened the tension. A lot. Skipped some of the tension guides. Quilted more slowly.

I used a silver and gray metallic, a twist, to do threadplay over black Fairy Frost fabric. It looks sensational. I forgot to take a picture, so look for that down the road. And I did more threadplay on a handbag I'm making. Fun.

Then I called Superior again because I needed a really light gold with shine, but not a metallic. They sent me a spool of Kimono Silk, my new love. That was so much fun! Again, put in a big needle and loosen the tension. (Some lessons have to be learned over and over and over ...) It's like spun sugar. Yummy.

I won't be using silk for everything; it's expensive. But I like it, and other thin threads, like Superior So Fine, for quilting veins and creases on leaf and flower applique, for threadplay, and for dense background quilting so it doesn't over-stiffen the quilt.

My own tension levels can throw my machine's performance off, which brings me to the dire deadline situation. Early in the year, I had a tiny waiting list, typical for January. Then the calls began coming, and by spring, well, swamped doesn't even begin to describe ... By June, I was afraid I wouldn't finish quilting all the quilts in time for a show. I did indeed meet that deadline, and now I'm on deadline for other shows.

I have learned a lot this year:
1. I need to say no more often.
2. Each day really does have enough time for a dip in Lake Me.
3. I can get on my own list.
4. Life is too short to squander time in ways that don't bring me joy.
5. I must loosen my tension.

My vehement advice for anyone who takes their tops to a machine quilter: Get on the waiting list 3 months before you need it. Don't wait till the top is done. Really. Quiltmaking is a marathon, not a sprint, and another quilt show is always just around the corner.

And, good custom quilting is worth the wait.