Stash Report and Stitching Time 11/13/2022

The past week of quilting started out with the emphasis on catching up with some free-motion quilting (FMQ) lessons. One of the final projects for the online class I've been taking is a sampler quilt made up of solid squares that each get quilted with a different motif. I made the pieced quilt top a couple months ago (see it HERE), and this week I pieced the back, plus made a little mini quilt with the same fabrics for testing out my tension and stitching designs.

The backing fabric is an old Jinny Beyer fabric. I love that it has feather designs, very much like some of the quilting motifs we are learning in class.

Above is my little mini version of the sampler quilt, complete with stitching samples. It measures around 18" square. All of the stitching near the center was done as a review of the motifs before I started quilting on the actual quilt. I'm using the same medium grey thread on all the different fabrics. After doing the test stitching, I quilted the first two blocks in the sampler quilt, and was very excited to have made a start. 

Unfortunately, the next day when I sat down to continue quilting, I discovered that my tension looked horrible on the back side of the quilt, with loops from the top thread pulling through to the back. It seemed as though there was no top tension on the machine. It is especially visible in the loop-de-loop near the center, the wavy line just above that, and even in the straight-stitch lines at the bottom. Click on the photo to zoom in.

I did everything I knew to make it better--rethreaded the machine multiple times, changed bobbins, new needle, etc. Nothing helped. The machine has electronic controls, and even when I had the top tension at the highest possible setting, it still looked like this. After two days of frustration, messing with the machine, searching online for suggestions, and phone calls to my dealer, nothing has gotten better. I'm hoping for a phone call from a Juki technician on Monday. 

Enough of my tale of woe, this is supposed to be a stash report. I used 3 yards for the sampler quilt backing plus 3/4 yard for the mini sampler quilt. 

2022 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:              3.75 yards

Used year to date:     126.125 yards

Added last week:              0.0 yards

Added year to date:     118.25 yards

Net used in 2022       7.875 yards

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of stitching time. Prepping my FMQ sampler quilt for quilting dominated the early part of the week, followed by days of frustration as I tried to figure out my tension problems. By Saturday I had given up and switched over to piecing on a different machine.

15 Minute Challenge for 2022: 

11/6 - 11/12            7 of 7 days

2022 Total        309 of 316 days

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA