I hardly noticed the date change since I've been spending time bonding with my sewing machine. I'm pleased to say we are becoming good friends. I believe 2012 will be a very quilty year.
Since I wanted to learn to machine quilt, that is what I set out to do. I'm fairly happy with the results, not because I'm good at it, but because I see where with plenty of practice, I could be good at it.
The Christmas table runner I was working on during my previous post Attempting to learn hand-quilting, has turned out pretty well.
Thanks to a quilting pro friend of mine, who does longarm quilting and does some of the most beautiful work I've ever seen, I learned that my bobbin tension needed adjustment as evidenced by the photo.
That makes sense. I had a terrible time trying to get the stitches to be uniform in size. They still aren't, but at least now I know what to do. My first couple of tries were definitely not good. I attempted to unsew them, that is, take the seam ripper to all those stitches. The stitches were so tight though that it was next to impossible to sneak the point of the seam ripper under them. I took great pains not to cut the fabric in the process, which was a failure. I actually did poke through it in a couple places. No problem, though as this table runner became a practice piece as soon as I made the decision to give machine quilting a try.
I actually think I could use this piece again, albeit under something larger than the tiny Christmas tree in the picture.
By next year, when it comes back out of the attic, I hope to be much more skilled at using my machine. I hope to laugh at myself the next time I see this piece because I will be so much better. So, onward and upward in this new, previously unexplored world of quilting.
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