Soldiering on with the Secret Project

So the Quilt Inspector has been whisked off on holiday with my parents for a week and without his distracting ways I have been getting on with things in QuiltLand. 

After my frustration with the FMQing on the secret project I decided to try one more thing to fix the problems...changing the thread. I decided to use the navy blue Guterman all purpose thread that I'd already used successfully on the main body of this quilt. I figured if I had the same problems with this thread then I'd only have a little bit to rip out and I could just persevere with the YLI thread. The Guterman worked like a dream, absolutely no skipped stitches and no thread breakage. I used a full bobbin without ANY problems and then realised I would have to rip out all the YLI thread that I'd spent sooo long putting in.

I think it's the right decision, even though my hand is killing me from using the seam ripper today! I wasn't quite sure that the colour of the thread looked quite right on the fabric and I'm much happier with the navy blue, especially as the stitches are much more even and no hideous parts with skipped stitches.

I'm not finished ripping out the YLI thread but I do feel like I've made a good dent in it! And I can always do a quick stint with the navy blue thread when I get fed up of ripping out stitches! I think if it were any other quilt than this one I would have just soldiered on but this one really needs to be perfect!

Terrible terrible!

I finally got around to doing a bit more more FMQing today on the secret project and was happily stippling away, thinking to myself, "this is going so much better than the guest room quilt!" when suddenly a small piece of metal landed on top of the quilt...I stopped and looked at it for a bit trying to figure out where it could possibly have come from (and hoping it hadn't come from inside the sewing machine!) as it looked like a piece of a paper clip that had been bent out of shape.

Suddenly it dawned on me what it was, and I don't think I could have been more heartbroken! It was the part of the presser foot that sits on top of the needle bit to make the presser foot go up and down :( so it quickly brought my quilting to an end!

Doesn't it look sad? I was certainly sad! I also certainly didn't expect it to die so soon! I bought it back in November when I was buying a bunch of other presser feet for the project I was doing at the time. However, it hadn't even been used until I did the guest room quilt, so it has lasted for 1 and a half quilts! It was pretty cheap as it was a generic universal type one but I definitely didn't think it would break on me!

I've ordered a new one and have gone for the proper Singer one this time in the hopes it will last a bit better! It certainly looks a bit more beefy than this one. It is around twice the price, but if I manage to get a full 3 quilts out of it then that will make it better value than this one!

I do wonder if perhaps the presser foot was the cause of all the skipped stitches (or it might just be me, I don't know enough about these things to really understand one way or the other!) that I will definitely be ripping out and redoing on this quilt (it needs to be as near to perfect as possible!). I guess I will see when the new one gets here!

5 working days seems like a long time to wait because I just want to get on with it! It was going so well and I am just SO excited to see how it looks in the end. 

I ended up packing away the sewing machine and dipping back into what I am calling "Dilly Quilt", because it is for my Aunty (Dilly). I had sewed the smaller squares together before I did the quilting on the guest room quilt and had attempted to sew four of them together to make the larger squares...unfortunately I thought I could get away with not squaring up my little squares before I did this and ended up so unhappy with the results that I ripped them all apart! It's not often I will actually bother to rip things apart (due to laziness) so that shows that they looked pretty awful! So I've squared them all up now and will hopefully attempt to stitch them together again tomorrow, depending upon how I feel when I wake up!

Secret Project Quilt Top Finished!

So, I received the fabric yesterday and got it straight in the wash (I have had some bad experiences where I haven't prewashed so realise this is a must now!). By the afternoon it had had a few hours hanging in the airing cupboard to dry and was ready to be ironed. So I stood and ironed all the fabrics - normally I hate ironing but there's something lovely about ironing a fresh new piece of fabric that's about to be turned into something awesome! Once it was ironed it seemed a shame to not start the cutting out so I went ahead. By around 8pm I had a few bits done and decided to call it a night.

I woke up early this morning because my room was too hot so decided to get on with it. By around lunchtime the quilt top was finished! Amazing! I made several mistakes along the way but everything worked out ok in the end!

I had quite a bit of fabric left so I decided to make some matching pillowcases to go with it.

I quite literally can't believe how awesome it all looks. And that I actually created it all!

I've decided to have a go at free motion quilting on this one and had a little practice this afternoon...it wasn't great but I shall do a lot more practice before I have a go at the real thing! I am tempted to pop down to the local fabric shop to get the wadding and backing but I worry that if I have that available to me, I won't be able to stop myself doing it for real!

I'm Excited!

What is the cause of this excitement? The fabric for my secret project arrived today! It's gone straight in the wash so will hopefully be dry and ironed ready for tomorrow so I can finally make a start on it! Huzzah!

This is the second lot of fabric I have bought for this project, the first lot looked perfect when I ordered them online but when they arrived I was terribly disappointed as they just weren't right - what I had ordered as a dark blue fabric turned out to be a bright turquoise! And when I reveal the secret project you will understand that bright turquoise just wouldn't do. Luckily Muv decided that the turquoise would work for one of her projects so I didn't have to go through the annoyance of sending it back!

I then went online to Minerva Crafts and Fabrics who had helped me with enquiries previously and the sales staff couldn't have been more helpful. They checked the fabrics I enquired about and even sent me photos of them all on the table next to each other so I could be sure that they worked together. Fabulous service! 

I also received the background fabric today all the way from America. I wasn't expecting to receive it until around the 18th so I'm super excited to have it a week earlier! This also means it will be prewashed at the same time as the other fabric so I can plough right on through to the finish :)