New Sewing Machine

OMG. I just bought an 830  sewing computer from our local shop. The machine is used. The lady who owned the shop was the first owner. I will be the second. It needs a cleaning before I take it home, but I won't have to pay for the cleaning. I will take it home tomorrow, I hope. In the meantime, I have the manual to read.

This makes machine number five. I am very excited about it and am looking forward to getting familiar with it. Instead of the 6" space between the needle and the body of the machine, there is 12" of space. I will have room to do my freehand quilting. There are USB ports on this machine. Bernina has entered the 21st century. There isn't FireWire. Oh well.

Waste Fabric!

I was digging through the instructions for the Mariner's Compass quilt to figure out how many yards of fabric I needed to buy. I was dutifully reading through the directions, making notes and adding up inches when I looked at the actual layout of the pieces. Instead of looking at a tiny diagram, I took out the pattern and unfolded it.

Wow. I can tell the fabric manufacturers LOVE this woman. The layouts are for speed during construction, not efficient use of fabric. Not by a long shot. In some cases, I'll use her suggested amounts of fabric. In others, I'm going to take apart her pattern and put it back together in a much more fabric efficient way. There is no way I can allow myself to waste that much fabric. Not at $13.00 a yard for batik cotton. I'm not the kind of person who saves every scrap for use in some other project. I hate scrappy projects.

Marking and Quilting

I've been using the chalk pencil and the air erasable marker to mark small sections of my quilt before I start a session of machine quilting. The air erasable marker lasts for more than one session before it fades off into no marks at all. The chalk pencil will brush off as I work and I have several times had to refresh the marks right before I stitch an particular area. Annoying as that might be, I'd rather the marks be too transient than permanent.

There is a huge fatigue factor. I'm a beginner, and I'm more tense than I wish I were. I don't have the muscle memory yet, though I can tell it is improving. I work very slowly, so I spend more time tensed up per pattern repeat than when working faster. Do I want to speed up? Certainly! I'm just in no rush to do so. I'd rather practice accuracy slowly than disaster at high speed. 

• Repositioning my hands very frequently helps.
• Making sure that the quilt is not falling off the table helps.
• Planning ahead so I don't have to sew accurately 'backwards' helps.
• Working in short sessions with significant breaks between them helps.

There are 244 pattern repeats on the quilt. The first day I tried, I completed three. I stopped after I got two of the scrolls upside down. Yesterday, I managed to complete 6. Today I did 10, and they look better than the first 9. By the time this quilt is completed, I should have the pattern stitch perfect.

Marking Tools for Quilting

These are the markers that I currently have to choose from to mark my quilt top.

Starting from the top:

• A BOHIN mechanical pencil with white chalk. It can be erased. Write lightly, or you might fray your fabric trying to erase. There are also other colors of chalk available, as well as refills for the erasers and replacement leads for the pencil.  These are made in France. They are highly recommended. Preliminary testing is successful, it erases cleanly. White is good for dark fabrics.
• A blue, water erasable pen. NOT recommended. The ink tends to bleed into the batting of the quilt and then come back to haunt you later, when you would rather it didn't. I have not tested this, there are enough horror stories around to make me not want to try it.
• A purple, air/humidity erasable pen that IS recommended. If there isn't enough humidity in the air to make it vanish, a swab with a damp cloth or a spritz of water works well. I have tested this. It is true. Purple does not show up on dark fabrics.
•  A FRIXION pen specifically for quilters, sewers and the like. It writes green and a warm iron makes it go away. I have tested this and it is correct. I'm told it can be erased. No eraser is attached to this pen, but there are erasers on the ones you can get from an office supply store. Green does not work on dark fabrics. And I don't ever want to try to iron a quilt with polyester fiberfil batting. The batting melts into something like flexible cardboard. If I were to use wool or cotton batting and light colored fabrics, I'd try this pen.
• The square, white thing on the bottom left is tailor's chalk of the old school. It isn't really chalk, it is wax. The lightest touch of a warm iron and it melts. It leaves marks like oil stains on many fabrics. This wax comes right out with dry cleaning. Wax is wonderful if you are working with  wool. It's not right for a cotton quilt top.
• The arrow head shaped doo-dad is a chalk wheel, that will put a fine line of (in this case) yellow chalk. The chalk brushes off and doesn't stain. For marking a quilt, it's only good for a very short time. The marks brush off so easily that normal handling, folding, and such will remove the marks. It is also difficult to get this shaped wheel to accurately mark a set of tight curves. Straight lines are easy. Chalk wheels are also available with white or blue chalk. The blue can be hard to find.

In all cases but for the wax and the FRIXION pen, you do NOT want to apply heat before the marks are removed. Heat will usually make your marks permanent. Forever and ever, no matter how much washing, permanent.

The qualities that are desired in a marker are that the mark be visible, the tool is not sharp and prone to damage the fabric during marking (super fine point tips are not always a good idea), and the marks should be either self removing, or easy to remove. If you choose not to remove the marks, they should not be visible to the casual observer.

Decisions, Decisions...

I am now trying to decide on the quilting pattern that I want to use on Bud's Flying Geese quilt. The straight lines in the ditch are in. I have one pattern that I practiced a bit, but it is swirly. Today, in a quilt shop, I spotted a flying geese pattern that had a cute geometric pattern in it. Variegated thread, too. But, I must get an OK from Bud about the pattern. I also purchased an air erasable pen, that vanishes with humidity. This is Florida. I won't be able to mark a lot in advance or it will be gone by the time I get to it.


The Mariner's Compass pattern arrived and I opened all the zip-lock bags and checked that all the papers and pages were included. I've already downloaded and printed out the corrections. Did I mention that the package weighed in at over 2 pounds? Yeah. I added up all the suggested yardage bits and it will take 30.5 yards of fabric to complete the top. I haven't purchased so much as a single thread of fabric yet.

I shopped for tools that I'll need to complete the Mariner's Compass quilt. Now all I need as a particular type of ruler in the correct size. As I work on this quilt, I will put the  pieces into a plastic under-bed storage box, to keep them together and in one location. If I decide to take my project on the road, it will be easier to transport.

Preparation Includes Shopping, Right?

So, the thread arrived for the geese and I have put in the stitch in the ditch quilting to hold the quilt stable. No problem. I've found a pattern that I want to use for the lines of geese and have been testing it out on some scrap fabric. Not surprising that I like drawing the design out first. I get much better results that way. On scrap fabric, I don't care if the marks are permanent or not.

I have a water soluble pen, a nice, soft pencil, tailor's chalk, tailor's wax, marking pencils, transfer pencils, and I like none of them. I don't trust the water soluble pen not to leave traces, the marking pencils don't iron out, the wax irons out, but leaves a mark, the soft pencil erases incompletely, and the transfer pencils are supposed to be permanent.

Tailor's chalk isn't permanent enough. It brushes off too easily and I would have to constantly re-apply it, or only mark small sections at a time.

Sigh.

I'm now shopping for a happy medium.

The pattern for the Mariner's Compass should arrive tomorrow. 

Next!

I'm already starting to work on the next major quilt project. It will be Judy Niemeyer's Mariner's Compass.  I shopped around and ordered the pattern and the extension to the pattern, so I can make a queen sized quilt. I've printed out a line drawing and have colored in several options for the corner pattern colorways and have decided on a three shades of blue colorway for the corners. I'm thinking about making the ropes (circles) in autumn tones from rust to browns. All the teeth and points in the middle are still up in the air.

The Mariner's Compass is going to wait until after I've finished the quilting for the Flying Geese. While I'm (still!) waiting for the thread to arrive, I can play with planning for the next quilt. I've no other projects partway done, now have I? Snrff!

Why am I getting ready to start this project? If all goes as planned, I'll be taking on a traveling OT position and be stuck in some rented residence several hours drive away from home, family, and studio. If I take a sewing machine, I'll set up on the dining room table and have something to do in the evenings.