Back in the saddle

March. MARCH!

That was the last time I did any quilting on this!!

Yesterday (Saturday) I wandered into the sewing room, thinking I would sew together some of the blocks lurking about on the design wall, but instead I decided to sit down at my quilting machine and get over myself.

True confessions: my quilting machine intimidates me, a little.

When it is good, it is very very good. When it is bad, it is horrid. It has a tendency to drop the needle into the bobbin case, while the machine is running. That's not good. That's very very bad. Horrid, even. BUT, it has forced me to become quite proficient at resetting the timing, which is a very very good skill to possess. Still, it's a PITA.

Anyway... I got over myself and my "fear" of my quilting machine (I imagined all sorts of problems after it sat idle for lo, these many months), and just started to quilt (making sure the needle was securely secured, and double-checking/tightening every so often). The peach border is still a puzzlement, but I already knew how I wanted to quilt the bowties, so I started doing them. I browsed through my drawer of quilting thread cones and found something I've named "70s Kitchen". It looks rather meh, but on closer inspection you can see Harvest Gold, Avocado Green, and Burnt Orange. Therefore, it blends with most, and when it doesn't, at least it doesn't scream "Bright! Neon! Colors!" It's a YLI thread with the name of "Dusk" (244-VA-17V) which I picked up at a local quilt store's Going Out of Business sale:

It does a very good job of blending, or receding into the background, or at least not being obnoxious:

Tonight I finished quilting the final bowtie--woohoo!!!--so now the only thing left is the peachy inner border.

I flung the quilt on the couch to show how nicely that thread disappeared, or at least played well with the fabrics it quilted:

You can certainly see that the bowties are quilted, but the original color and pattern of the fabric isn't impacted in any way by the 70s colors of the thread. I'm quite pleased! Even the blacks look good:

I found myself 'steering' the fabric slightly differently this time around. My right wrist gets weaker by the day it seems, so I'm no longer able to keep everything taut as possible with my fingers and thumbs while I guide the top under the needle. I found that I pushed/pulled more with the heel of my palms, instead. But, I also found my left hand slipping along the top instead of staying close to the needle where it could do the most/best work. (The plastic steering collar/guide grip that came with the machine? Useless.) I've used cheap winter gloves with the grippy dots as quilting gloves for years, and the dots have simply worn away from the left glove.
   Just recently, hubby discarded an unused pair of slipper socks given to him for one of the many medical procedures he's had to endure this year. I rescued the package from the trash, putting it in with my slipper socks instead (my feet are usually cold). So when I was pondering what I could use on my left hand to help grip the fabric--ta da!!! Snip snip snip snip snip, and I have a new "glove" for my left hand:

I tried just slipping it over my hand, but I really need my thumb and 1st finger free for picking off lint, pulling up threads, and unpinning pins.

By the way, the machine behaved beautifully all weekend long. I don't know why I'm such a wuss!