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!
Showing posts with label YLI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label YLI. Show all posts
Monday, 14 April 2014
Wednesday, 9 April 2014
Frustrated with Free Motion Quilting!
I had such a frustrating day yesterday! I was super excited to see that the replacement darning foot had arrived. It looks a look sturdier than the previous one so will hopefully last longer than one and a half quilts!!!
I got it installed nice and quickly and had a quick try on a practice quilt sandwich with the thread that was already on the machine. I was super pleased with it, it seemed to produce better stitches than the previous one. I decided I would get on with the free motion quilting I was in the middle of when the last presser foot broke rather than continuing the piecing on Dilly Quilt.
I changed the thread over to the one I was using for the stippling on Secret Project. It's a grey/blue variegated thread by YLI. I bought it when I was in a different fabric shop to usual and I saw they had different brands of thread than I was used to and I wanted to give it a try. Usually I use King Tut by Superior Threads because that is available to me locally.
I have had SO much trouble with this thread! To start with the main problem I was getting was skipped stitches, and not just one or two...I'm talking 5-10 skipped stitches at a time so I just get a long straight bit of thread. After a few times of ripping out and redoing sections of stitches I went online to search for solutions. The problem is that there are so many possible solutions out there and it's impossible to know which one it will be.
First of all I tried changing to a new needle. I was using a 90/14 and changed for a new one of those. I went ahead and had a go on my practice sandwich which came out fine. As soon as I went back to the project, it started happening again!
Next step for me to try was to take out the stitch plate and give it a good cleaning! So I did that and got loads of lint out of the machine (so maybe I should have given it a clean before, I just didn't really trust myself to!) and thought to myself, "this definitely must have been the problem". I went back to the project and started again...there were very few skipped stitches, however now the thread decided it would break after about 30cm of stippling! This happened many many times so I then decided to try changing the needle size to see if that would make a difference so I tried a 100/16. This made very little difference and I ended up breaking the thread at least 20 more times before I gave up!
I want to go back to it today and try and sort it out but I'm just not sure I've got the energy for it!
I haven't had any problems with the previous part of this project, in which I did a sort of wood grain effect, but I was using a different thread for that, which does make me wonder if it's just that the thread and my machine don't get along very well...hopefully I will have a bit more luck with it when I do go back to it!
I got it installed nice and quickly and had a quick try on a practice quilt sandwich with the thread that was already on the machine. I was super pleased with it, it seemed to produce better stitches than the previous one. I decided I would get on with the free motion quilting I was in the middle of when the last presser foot broke rather than continuing the piecing on Dilly Quilt.
I changed the thread over to the one I was using for the stippling on Secret Project. It's a grey/blue variegated thread by YLI. I bought it when I was in a different fabric shop to usual and I saw they had different brands of thread than I was used to and I wanted to give it a try. Usually I use King Tut by Superior Threads because that is available to me locally.
I have had SO much trouble with this thread! To start with the main problem I was getting was skipped stitches, and not just one or two...I'm talking 5-10 skipped stitches at a time so I just get a long straight bit of thread. After a few times of ripping out and redoing sections of stitches I went online to search for solutions. The problem is that there are so many possible solutions out there and it's impossible to know which one it will be.
First of all I tried changing to a new needle. I was using a 90/14 and changed for a new one of those. I went ahead and had a go on my practice sandwich which came out fine. As soon as I went back to the project, it started happening again!
Next step for me to try was to take out the stitch plate and give it a good cleaning! So I did that and got loads of lint out of the machine (so maybe I should have given it a clean before, I just didn't really trust myself to!) and thought to myself, "this definitely must have been the problem". I went back to the project and started again...there were very few skipped stitches, however now the thread decided it would break after about 30cm of stippling! This happened many many times so I then decided to try changing the needle size to see if that would make a difference so I tried a 100/16. This made very little difference and I ended up breaking the thread at least 20 more times before I gave up!
I want to go back to it today and try and sort it out but I'm just not sure I've got the energy for it!
I haven't had any problems with the previous part of this project, in which I did a sort of wood grain effect, but I was using a different thread for that, which does make me wonder if it's just that the thread and my machine don't get along very well...hopefully I will have a bit more luck with it when I do go back to it!
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