Hubby's Monopoly Quilt

Hubby's birthday was yesterday and I made him his own quilt. I wanted something masculine looking, or at least not floral, and I saw this monopoly fabric and just had to buy it. Since he loves our doxie I made the center block out of dachshund fabric I had picked up in Harrisburg a few years back. Since I did not want him to see it I actually quilted it at work on the Pfaff sit down quilter. It went pretty fast but I also decided to use a template ruler for the border and that did not turn out too well. Apparently one needs to practice with those rulers for awhile - anyhoo my hubby does not seem to notice my irregular quilting on the borders!

 

 

 

Making Free Motion Quilting Easier - The Elna 740 Table

I have had the Elna 740 sewing machine for about 2 years now but have resisted buying the Elna table that goes with it. I use the 740 primarily for free motion quilting and usually just leave it set up for that purpose only. The advantages of the table is that the machine sits recessed into the table thus allowing a flat surface for the quilt to slide over. Well I took the plunge and cannot believe how much easier it is to FMQ with the machine in this table.

Notice how the bed of the machine is flush with the table. Plus the table itself is finished with some type of Formica that is extremely smooth and allows the quilt to glide over it without a Teflon overlay. It allows use of the knee lift and has a drawer on the left front for accessories.

The table has adjustable levelers on each leg so I was able to make it the same height as my cutting table. I rearranged my sewingroom to have the 740 back to back with my cutting table which now allows me to have over 60 inches of surface for my quilt to lay on and avoid the drag while quilting. I am more than happy with my new table and have already stippled a quilt with more ease than ever before.

Free Motion Quilting on the Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0

Well I have had my Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0 for about 6 weeks now and finally am comfortable with free motion quilting with the Sensormatic foot.  Originally, I thought I would use the spring free motion foot but actually like this little Sensormatic foot.  I had great difficulty at first and I am not happy there is so little instruction in the manual.  I have searched the web and sewing forums and as usual have found several places with comments and recommendations.  I found that the Pfaff Quilters Forum  http://www.pfafftalk.com/chatroom/mvnforum/index was most helpful on this topic. I took advice from these sources and here is what works for me.

Foot:

Sensormatic free motion foot

 

I had trouble putting on the foot at first.  As shown below the top plastic hooky thing goes in front of the needle bar.

 

 

 Feed Dogs:

 

Lower the feed dogs by pushing the feed dog lever on the front of the machine to the left.

 

 

Settings:

 
Under the Settings Menu (the button with the tool icon) I turn on the Sensormatic Free motion.  I change the Pivot Height to -3 and I turn off the Auto foot lift. This will automatically change the thread tension to 5.2 but on my machine I need to increase it to 5.4 or 5.6 depending on the thread that I am using. This will also automatically set the stitch length to 0.0.

Thread:

I have experimented with embroidery thread, King Tut Quilting Thread and Coats and Clark All Purpose thread.  All have worked well as long as I have the same thread in the top and bobbin. 

Needle:

I am using a 90/14 Organ needle; I had been using a 75/11 and experienced thread shredding and since changing to the 90/14, all is well.



 

 

So now I am quite happy with FMQ on my QE4!!

 

 

 

Free Motion Quilted Pumpkin Runner

 

 

As I referred to in an earlier post, http://juliannasjourney.blogspot.com/2012/08/pumpkin-runner.html, I have been practicing free motion quilting and am really getting better at it.  I want to FMQ 2 quilts by Christmas so I need to get better at it.  With this in mind, I quilted the Pumpkin Runner shown above.  I used different patterns on the background, pumpkins and border.  Hopefully you can see my designs in the following pics.  The different patterns really added alot of dimension to the runner.

 

 

I did a circular design in the center of the pumpkins and a 2 way design between them.  On the right I used a graded long parallel stitch which looks great on it, although it is hard to see in the picture.

 

 

On the border I used a paisley design that I saw on Leah Day's site  Paisley  and it did come out fairly well for my first try.

 

A few things that have helped me with FMQ are Little Genie Magic Bobbin Washers http://www.daystyledesigns.com/magicgeniewashers.htm, the teflon oven liner http://juliannasjourney.blogspot.com/2012/09/fmq-and-teflon-slider.html that I made a slider out of for my machine and quilting gloves.  Along with these items, I have practiced FMQ for 15 minutes a day for weeks.  But I must say what finally made it click was a comment that I read, unsure of where I read it, that compared drawing with a pencil; when you draw you move the pencil around the paper but when you free motion quilt, you move the fabric around the needle.  For whatever reason, this radically changed how I envisioned the patterns and I have become better at FMQ.

 



Pumpkin Runner

I got together with several friends and started a monthly sewing club.  Our first project is the pumpkin runner shown above Pumpkin Runner from Hoffman Fabrics.  It was intended to be made of batiks but we each went through our fabric stash to come up with our designs.  We were able to get most of the front constructed in our first session.  Next we will add the backing and batting and at the next session we will free motion quilt our runner.  The directions for this runner are vague for beginners but we figured it out.  The term 'snowballing' was new to us and so I found a tutorial on how to snowball http://quilting.about.com/od/quiltpatternsprojects/ss/snowbal_economy_4.htm which clearly explained it. The last part of constructing the runner was the mitered corners which proved to be the most difficult part but again, we figured it out.

Now we are all beginners at free motion quilting and it is truly an art in itself. There are many helpful videos on the Internet but the most comprehensive source is The Free Motion Quilting Project by Leah Day http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/.  FMQ takes hours of practice but I am quite intrigued by the beautiful results I see posted everywhere on the Internet so it has become an obsession to me to master it. 

So look forward to the posting of my finished product in the next few weeks.