A simple yet amazing tool

Every once in awhile, my Gammill does this weird thing and leaves random loops of top thread on the back of a quilt. 

Up until now, I've struggled with how to fix the back of the quilt. I recently discovered the Snag Magic tool and it works so well to fix these loops! Basically it's a heavy needle with a flexible loop on the end. 

 You insert the needle at the base of the thread loop and catch it in the loop of the needle...

 You insert the needle at the base of the thread loop and catch it in the loop of the needle, then pull to put the fabric loop into the batting. So easy!!! 

This tool is so much easier to use than what I was using - a punchneedle threader. I'm so glad that Doug at Snag Magic asked me to give the tool a try!

Check out their website at http://www.snagmagic.com/

Quilter, pharmacist, Gammill repair technician...

Yesterday I decided to load my friend Dyane's ultra modern quilt onto the Gammill and start quilting. Although I had no idea what design(s) I wanted to use, after looking at a couple modern quilting books, I soon knew exactly what I wanted to do!!

Once I got started, I was LOVING quilting this quilt!!

 BUT it was super hot in my quilting studio and when I was about half way through the quilt I decided to take a break and go for a swim to cool off. BIG MISTAKE!!

One thing led to another and I never got back to the quilt until this morning. The first stitch I took made a HUGE crunching noise and then I saw the needle broken off and curled into the shape of a "C". Not a good sign (and a big reason why I'm not that sad that I have to wear glasses LOL).

So, I put in a new needle, but the thread kept breaking and the machine was skipping stitches so I adjusted the tension and figured that I needed to "time" the needle and hook. After doing that the needle wouldn't bring up the bobbin thread. I changed the needle, but that was no help sooooo....I got out the manual and decided that maybe the impact of the needle break was so great that it had affect the height of the needle bar. I've had to fix this before, so no big deal, but I had to take off the faceplate in order to access the screw. Would any of my allen keys work for this??? Of course not, and so began the 10 minute search for my son's allen keys....

OK - faceplate off, needle bar height adjusted AND..... still the bobbin thread will only come up when there is no quilt under the needle. Soooo... I change the needle again and take off the throat plate to look at the timing again. It looks OK, but when I look straight on through where the bobbin usually sits, the needle is WAY too low now!! What is going on??? So I take the needle out and lay in down beside the other needle and it is almost 1/4" longer!! So, this is something I never realized before but Gammill needles are not a standard length. - good to know!

So,,, faceplate off again, needle bar height adjusted AGAIN. Timing adjusted AGAIN. And now the machine will quilt (thank god!!) but it is skipping stitches like crazy! And when I roll the quilt into the uptake bar at the back, there are little knots of thread on the back. And the thread STILL keeps breaking so I keep adjusting the tension and after two hours of this I decide that it is once again time for a swim!!

After cooling down (literally and figuratively) I went back to the Gammill and it was stitching a bit better. Well enough to finish the rest of the quilt although the thread probably broke 50 more times and I had to go back and re-stitch over places that it had skipped stitches.

The quilting looks really good on the front of the quilt dispite all of these issues, but tonight I will be spending the evening with my punchneedle thread and tweezers pulling the little knots on the back under the fabric. At the least the Olympics are on!! Go Canada Go!!

 

 

Another sample from our book "Celebrate Canada"

Nellie and I have been working hard to get all of the samples from our quilt finished so that they can travel to Quilt Canada in June!! Karen from "Quilt Thyme" quilt shop in Kingston, Ontario will be displaying them in her booth in the merchants mall AND for a couple of the days Nellie and I will be in her booth signing copies of our book "Celebrate Canada"

So Nellie's "Coast to Coast" quilt was the next one to be quilted and after doing all of those maple leaves on my quilt, I was feeling quite confident that I could do some on hers as well. I got it loaded onto the frame and then got to work.

For the first few maple leaves that I quilted I used my laser pointer and followed a design on paper. I added some swirls and loops in between the leaves and after awhile I didn't need to follow the paper design at all!!

For the center of the quilt I thought it would be fun to do a spiral design over all of the blocks. It turned out quite nice!

In the two inner borders I did my favourite loop-de-loop design and the side-to-side swirl.

Here it is - all quilted and ready for binding!! We just LOVE these Oh Canada fabrics from Northcott!! 

Quilting maple leaves from the backside

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #20 - Celebrate Canada quilt

At our retreat in February I put together a sample of the "Our Native Land" quilt from our book "Celebrate Canada".

Celebrate Canada Book

This quilt was super fast and fun to put together and I still just LOVE the Oh Canada fabrics from Northcott. Now that I'm back from my trip, and have a bit of time to spare, I've finally been able to get it quilted!!

I wanted to quilt a maple leaf design on the quilt, so I decided to use a pantograph that I had on hand. I don't often use pantographs for one simple reason - space. My Gammill is located in a long, skinny sun room off the back of our house and when the Gammill is pushed right back, it just barely clears the opposite wall. So standing behind it, to quilt a pantograph is "almost" impossible.

So, I decided to try stitching the pantograph while standing to the left side of the machine. I had to hold the left hand button in my right hand, and use my left hand to help steer by holding onto the body of the machine. By doing this, I was able to keep an eye on the laser pointer as it followed the design on the pantograph.

 The end result turned out AWESOME - although I think I might need to go for a back massage after stitching in that position for the hours that it took to finish the quilt!!

One of the risks of stitching from the back of the machine is that you aren't watching the FRONT of the machine - can you see where I missed stitching a maple leaf???

Luckily, I noticed while the quilt was still on the machine so that I could go back and add the missing leaf. My quilt turned out just lovely and I just LOVE the maple leaf quilting!!

Twenty projects done for my 52 week challenge!! Turns out that quilting maple leaves from the backside isn't so hard after all and I'm so pleased with my quilt. 

52 Week UFO Challenge Project #7 - Sliced Layer Cake Quilt

Do you ever wonder what to do with all your layer cakes?

I bought this "Snowman Gatherings" layer cake and co-ordinating fabrics by Primitive Gatherings in October because I just LOVED the fabrics. I don't usually buy layer cakes because I never know what to do with them, so I really wanted to make sure that I used this one and didn't just let it collect dust in my sewing room.

Snowman Gatherings II Layer Cake

When I was packing for our quilt retreat in November I decided that I wanted to bring along this layer cake to work on, so I did some research online and found some layer cake designs that I liked. I decided to just slice the whole layer cake into quarters diagonally. I mixed up the quarters and sewed four together to make blocks. I wanted the blocks set on point, so I used two triangles sewn together to make the side setting triangles and one single triangle for the corner setting triangles. I added navy sashing strips and a light blue fabric that I've had in my stash for years are the cornerstone blocks in the sashing.

It went together really nicely and pretty quick too, but it needed to be quilted and I figured that it would be nice to get it done while it was still winter! First step was to get in on the Gammill:

I decided to quilt large snowflakes and swirls on the outer border:

Snowflake and swirl quilting design

 I need practice quilting with my rulers, and I'm always afraid to do too much ruler work on a customer quilt, just in case things do work out the way I want. So, when I'm quilting one of my own quilts, I try to do some ruler work if it is appropriate for the design. I decided to use my straight ruler to stitch in the ditch through all of the blocks:

Stitch in the ditch

And my large curved ruler to do an arc on the outside edge of each block:

A loop design down each of the sashing strips and through the inner border finished it off nicely.

After a trip to Taylor Sewing Centre (to buy more binding fabric - I was 5" short so I got the metre that was left on the bolt LOL) I was able to sew on the binding.

Stitching on the binding

 After an evening hand stitching while watching Downton Abbey, Project #7 is finished!! This quilt was so fast and easy to make - I'm going to teach it a Taylor's Sewing Centre in April. Check out the class schedule and their fabric selection - after all, the do have a REALLY nice assortment of layer cakes for sale!!

Quilting a paisley design and trying out our new GoPro

A couple months ago we were lucky enough to win a GoPro video camera. We aren't a family of extreme sports fanatics so the most exciting thing we have done with it was to strap it to our springer spaniel Willow to take a video of her chasing our jack russell terrier Pugsley. I would let you see it, but it could make just about anyone get motion sickness LOL

So, today when I was out in my quilting room working on my Gammill I decided to try out the GoPro myself and did a little video showing how I was quilting a paisley design on my friend Donna's quilt. The video is OK for a first try, but the video angle is a little low (guess I should have had the head harness mount on instead of the chest one). But now I know how to charge the GoPro, switch harnesses, how to turn it on, and how to edit the video. I also figured out how to upload it to YouTube and how to put it on my blog, so I think the possibilities are endless.

By the way, my teenage boys are MORTIFIED that I would use the GoPro to video myself QUILTING!!!