Saturday, January 7, 2017
It took all of last evening and most of the morning to tie in and bury all my threads from yesterday’s quilting. I was anxious to get at the next step but, since there is a Song Circle tomorrow, I had some baking to get done; I wanted to make a batch of cookies and a loaf. I made the Coconut Loaf in two smaller pans – one for the Song Circle and one for the freezer for the concession I’m running later this month. Since I had a start on the concession baking I thought I should make a double batch of cookies so one batch could be put away. I didn’t have enough unsweetened chocolate squares and my flour was running low so I decided to put off making the cookies until I’d at least had a try at my free-motion quilting with the ruler template.
When I purchased the templates the woman in the shop tried to up-sell me on a few items. One of them was the quilting slider which I already had but didn’t use often because I have, on many occasions, stitched the slider directly into the quilt! When we were in Houston, Stacia told me to tape the edges of the slider down and that is what I did. No more slippery slider!
The bit of work I did on the quilt didn’t go as quickly as I hoped. I had trouble with my thread breaking until I changed my needle. I always use the Start/Stop button on my machine but trying to hold the ruler, guide the fabric, and reach for the button proved that I needed an extra hand. So I dug out my presser foot and, once I was used to it, things moved along. I perhaps should have done more practicing on a sample sandwich before launching into the quilt but I didn’t and everyone is just going to have to live with what I’ve done. I admit it has become easier and looks a bit better with each block that I’ve done. The good news is that from a distance you can’t really see the quilting.
There is still a lot of work to do, and there will be a lot more ends to tie and bury. I need to plan better when picking out (or settling on) a quilting design.
I’m off now to the store to pick up what I need for those cookies.