News from the Quilt Shack

Yesterday the sun was shinning and it wasn't too cold, it was a good day to quilt. My quilt shack is heated and cooled but I leave the temperature set real low and then it will take a while to warm up when I go out there if it is real cold. But yesterday was a nice day and I had no excuse because when I finished the quilt I was doing Saturday for a friend I went ahead and loaded one of mine so that it was ready to go.

I am calling this one Hop N Blue. It is one of Bonnie Hunter's patterns, Hopscotch and Butterscotch. I have made this pattern several times. Things should have gone great, but I kept have a problem with my bobbin thread breaking or just loosing all tension. I was using prewound bobbins and I have used them before with no trouble. In fact I love that they have so much thread on them that you don't run out as often. My top thread was a Signature brand called Linen. My machine usually loves the Signature brand but I had not used this particular spool before. I finally got the whole thing quilted. It might not have been so bad but I was using a pretty heavy quilted pattern.

On my last row the thread broke three times on the first three designs but then finished the row out without breaking. My plans were to use prewound bobbin for the next quilt, but I had made up my mind if it started breaking I would go back to winding my own.

This was the next quilt I loaded. It has been pieced and hanging on sewing room closed door for several years. It even has mitered borders and the little black inner border is the flat pipping. I had to think about how to quilt this one with out quilting down that flap. I used a little darker thread on the top for this one and didn't have a bit of trouble with that same bobbin thread. I guess that other thread just didn't play well with others. Hopefully I remember this next time I want to use the Linen color.

I got these little blocks put together and borders on as well. I was a little unsure about the black inner border but really like how it turned out. I had to really think on cutting and sewing these borders since the fabric was directional. These blocks are also a Bonnie Hunter pattern called Oklahoma Back Roads.

I had to make sure and the little frogs were going in the same direction. Now to cut the binding and find something for the back. The friend I quilted one for on Saturday gave me two more to quilt. My plan it to get at least one of them quilted today.

Happy stitching,

Teresa