Wednesday, January 11, 2017

I’m back at my ruler quilting; I hoped to be finished today but I don’t think that is going to happen. I am making progress though and I’m getting a bit quicker. There are still a few things I’m not happy with – actually more than a few – and I may ask the advice of my Guild members as to whether or not the project is suitable even as a donation quilt.

Without getting into too much technical jargon (and I wouldn’t even know the technical terms to use) I have changed my method today. I was having trouble with the back stitching at the beginning of a run because the bobbin thread was bunching up on the back. So today I went back to one of the first things I learned about free-motion quilting and that was to pull the bobbin thread to the top before starting. That worked well but the scissors leave a particularly short bit of bobbin thread for the next start and I was constantly having to remove my gloves in order to grab the small bit and pull the thread longer.

After a few glove-off glove-on moments I decided I didn’t need the hand that holds the ruler to be gloved. So I keep the glove on my right hand (to pull the fabric) and that leaves my gloveless left hand to pull the bobbin thread to the top; the ruler stays in place equally as well with or without the glove.

I’ll get back to in now and see how far I can get before the day runs out.