Machine Quilting Mess

Machine Quilting Mess
Oh goodness gracious. This was going so well… then it wasn’t. You ever have
that happen???
I had the whole thing planned in my mind and again on paper. I wanted a modern
quilt that represented and looked like rain. As it turns out, I had all the fabric on
hand to make my small-ish vision come together. I stitched a few rows, I varied a
few widths.
I sketched a quilting plan. Side note, just to save you the trouble of figuring this
on your own- If you want to make a wavy line, with a tiny raindrop on the end, as
your quliting design- it will look like –cough cough– the original swim team, if you
know what I mean. Thankfully, I had that realization on paper BEFORE I had it
quilted into the design.
OnwardI added the quilt to my quilt frame (Hinterberg Frame with a Juki Quilt machine
head) in the horizontal way. I guess I always think of quilts as vertical rectangles
and generally quilt them that way. Since I needed the “rain” design to go
vertically, I had to add the quilt to the frame rotated 90 degrees. I think that
through off my free motion quilting chi.
Sometimes, the quilting feels like a crazy steep learning curve. Other times, I’m
thrilled. This is a learning curve time. My Juki machine has about 8″ of quilting
throat space. I wanted to make rain drops at the bottom of my quilt- nice flat oval
shaped drips, complete with ripple rings… Um… Well… What I ended up with
was some chunky weird cinnamon rolls that look like they were delivered to a gas
station heat-lamp by way of some 4-wheeler, dragging the cinnamon roll pan
tethered to a rope behind. Specific much? Maybe a bit, but really, the swirls look
pretty beat up. I had to start and stop in the middle of each “ring” to advance and
roll the quilt top. I have definitely NOT mastered that move.
I looked at my “work” for about a day then decided I need to make a couple
changes.
I think my seam ripper is dull now. But I am so glad I ripped out the cinnamon
rolls. I will now be adding the quilt back to the frame, rotated the proper 90
degrees, so that I can comfortably stitch smooth, smaller drips/ripples.
Ah, swim team, cinnamon rolls, seam ripper, and modern quilting. Just another
day at the office. bwhahahahaha.
Stay tuned. I’ll show you how the new stitching turns out.