After my Brother machine's Spa Day, it was time to officially go from the Viking and its free motion quilting to the Brother with its walking foot and feed dogs. I'm useless at quilting a straight line on the Viking and will admit that willingly. Even though the middle could use some more FMQing (and will get it eventually), it was time to change to straight quilting for a while.
The Dining Room table has been coöpted during the straight-line portion of quilting this top.
My studio table is just too full. I'd be knocking stuff over, off, left, and right as I turned this top back and forth. Not a fun experience!
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| Yep, I own two Brothers. They're great machines and this one's been languishing, unused, for far too long. |
The middle portion of this project has names and other embroidery done in block lettering. However, the space between the lines of lettering is sometimes only a matter of a couple of threads.
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There is absolutely no way I could've done this with FMQing alone. My Viking doesn't even like going as slow as would've been necessary to get this exact!
It took a couple of days to get the middle quilted and the threads buried (so hard on my eyes!) When that was done, I concentrated on the four outer corners. These, however, had cursive writing in them! I thought I'd be doing the same squared-up quilting lines in these as in the center, but it was obvious that was the wrong style for the embroidery. I'd need to slant the ends of each row to follow the slant of my mom's handwriting.
That was easily done, and the embroidery was placed close enough together that I could easily eyeball where to stitch the horizontal lines. There was one corner, however, in which the embroidered lines were spaced further apart than the others. I didn't trust my eye to keep a straight line as I traversed this section, but didn't want to introduce any water- or air-soluble pens to this project. I didn't have a hera marker (of which I've heard great things), nor an extremely dull pizza wheel, but I did have a wooden "iron"
and that angled end (and a ruler) did a great job of pressing straight lines into the fabric.
I'm very glad to be working on this portion of the quilting now. I've been looking forward to it for several days/weeks. There are several more areas that'll need this close, straight stitching attention, but I'm well on my way to getting those knocked out quickly.
I have to say that's a stunning table you have there! Seriously, I can't for the life of me imagine having the patience for all this intricate work, even with both eyes working 100%. Your machine actually makes the letters or is that by hand? There are plenty of people I know who should write with a sewing machine rather than the illegible stuff they manage with a pen. I've been doing a lot of hand sewing recently putting gold braid/lace? on the very plain Renaissance dress I bought, trying to make myself look more regal than peasant. I don't think there's any way a machine could have handled that gold trim without tearing it up, but it was pretty easy to attach it by basting it on. It won't take a lot of wear and tear so hopefully I won't get pulled into a jousting match, but it looks nice from a distance, and one should keep one's distance from royalty anyway, right?
ReplyDeleteI wonder why my post came up as "unknown". When I'm typing it has my name and email address at the bottom. This is DJ, in case you didn't figure it out.
ReplyDeleteOH! Hi there, DJ!! My mother did all the embroidery (all of which I've blurred out in any picture showing names and dates)--my main goal is to quilt these areas with as little of my stitching going over hers.
ReplyDeleteYes, the table is my favorite piece in that room ;) (Well, that and the wine cabinet.)
I'm seeing your comment as from "noreply-comment at blogger.com". I suppose if you really cared, you could easily find out how to be seen as a real person when commenting on a blog.
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