Cindy's Bee Rail Fence Variation

Cindy made this fun Rail Fence variation with gold, gray, black and white bee-themed fabrics.

I quilted all-over designs of flowers, feathers, leaves, circles, and bees.

I figured out a free-handed bee design, after much drawing practice.

Thanks Cindy!

 

Uh. Woops.

This is a little story about how I really messed things up. Now, this happened back in November, several months ago. I'm not very punctual on the blogging, but I'm sharing so that others can hopefully learn from my mistakes. It all started when I was warming up my machine one fine day. When I warm up my machine, I put a few drops of oil in the appropriate spots, remove the bobbin and pull the thread out of the needle and the take up lever and lay it across the top of the machine, and let her go for a few minutes. Well this time, the thread slipped from the vibrations of the machine going, and got caught in the handwheel and in between a tiny crevasse I'm pointing to in the photo below. So much so that it bound up the machine to the point that it couldn't move! I was nearby winding up bobbins and heard the machine slow down and eventually stop working, so I was able to turn it off right away.

Me being me, I decided to take the cover off the machine to see if I could get at the problem easier. I proceed to loosen all the bolts and screws to hopefully get things apart enough that I can get to the thread mess a lot easier. You, know, just get to the area, pull the thread mess off the shaft part, put it all back together, and I'd be back in business in no time! Sure! But I couldn't get to it. By this time my husband was involved in the process, and this is when we called Nolting. And guess what, all the techs were out with Covid! But we were able to talk to someone who could help. The technician confirmed that we were in a mess, we can't take it apart to get to where all the thread was bound up.  Also, because of everyone being out with Covid except for one guy who was very backed up with the workload, it would be a good two weeks or more before they could work on it if I were to bring it in to get fixed. 

So we decided to see if we could get it going on our own. With a little thin bandsaw blade, tweezers, a few cuss words and such, we were able to get all the thread out! All that grey thread in a pile was wound up in that little bitty crack!

Now, the hard part- putting the machine back together! Ugh! I had taken apart everything inside that although I could put it back together, it has to be juuust right in order for the timing to be correct. And tight enough so that it doesn't slip back out of timing. The slightest move of a part can really mess things up! I'd think I'd have it right, then it would skip stitches when moving in a certain direction- away from me and to the right. I watched this youtube video a hundred times, and adjusted my screws a hundred more times, and over the course of over a week or more, and a few broken needles, I eventually got it right!

Ugh. What a nightmare. I was ready to toss the whole thing in a ditch somewhere several times. Yes, it would have saved me a lot of time and anguish if I were able to take it to Nolting right away and have them work on it, (a 4hr. drive one way, a couple hours or so of work, write a hefty check, and another 4 hour drive home. A full day, but I'd be up and running the next day.) but that was not going to happen with the whole Covid/quarantine situation backing things up on their end. But, I guess now I know my machine inside and out, and feel pretty confident that I know what I'm doing when it comes to timing my Nolting CLX. That's one thing I will say about Nolting longarms is that they are workhorses, and yes, you can fix it yourself with some tech help and the right tools, and most importantly, being able to put aside your frustrations. I love my Nolting CLX, it dosen't have a lot of bells and whistles, so in several cases, I can fix it myself! And now I am a lot more careful of where I place my thread when I'm warming up my machine!

 

Cindy's Giant Framed Square

Cindy made this super bordered quilt with some fun and bright Kaffe prints.

I quilted an all-over with designs of all kinds of things.

The center.

The back.

I did have issues of the quilt being more hourglass shaped than square. Proof that even the simplest looking of quilts can be more difficult than expected. But I did my best to ease in the excess material and although not exactly perfect, we were both happy with how it turned out. Lessons were learned on both ends, and we move on to the next project! 

Thanks Cindy!

Cindy's Kaffe Houses

Cindy made this awesome quilt of houses using Kaffe fabrics.

I custom quilted it by making each house a little bit different.

I filled in the background with lots of swirls.

The gray road on the bottom is a simple straight line meander.

The sky got some big swooshy swirls and clouds.

What a fun quilt! It really made me stretch my creativity.

Thanks Cindy!

 

Kathy's Red White and Blue Star

Kathy brought me this fun patriotic table topper.

I used a red, white and blue variegated thread on it.

Some paisley feathers in the border and a simple loop and star meander in the background areas.

For the star, some echoed curves, alternating directions in each part.

A white back and blue bobbin thread shows the quilting off nicely. 

Thanks Kathy!

 

Duvet re-do

Have you ever started a project that seemed super simple, but part way through, you realize you probably bit off more than you could chew? Gloria started with a duvet cover that she was just going to quilt together on her domestic machine. Well, the size of this thing turned out to be too cumbersome and the project was getting too out of hand. You can still see some of her markings above.

So I was able to come to the rescue! She had ripped out the seams on three edges and had the batting already stitched into it along the top.

I was able to quilt it all together for her to square up and bind again.

Just some all over half feathers, curls, and leaves and things on this large scale floral print.

The tricky thing is that the top and backing are pretty much the same exact size. So I just quilt is as best as I can, with both of us knowing that in the end it will lose a few inches in size when the sides and bottom are not exactly matched up.

The back side.  

Imagine you have two pieces of paper stacked on top of each other. Now, slide the top sheet of paper down a little bit. The bottom paper sticks out above the top paper on the top, and the top paper extends past the bottom paper at the bottom. That's how it is when you quilt two pieces of fabric the same size on the longarm. And that's why us longarm quilters need a good 4 inches or so of extra backing fabric all around the edges of the quilt.

And there you go! My first duvet rescue, but it won't be the last I'm sure.

 Thanks Gloria!