Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Finished. . .Finally!

Well, my Ocean Waves quilt is finally finished and I am really happy with how it turned out and ready to move on! 
I still have lots to do as far as decorating/re-decorating our bedroom goes, but this quilt was probably the most labor intensive part of the project, so now I feel like I can officially BEGIN with the rest of my to-do list now that this is done.  I started this quilt in mid-December and have put off so many other things these last few months in order to stay focused on this quilt.  But now I am really ready to play catch up, including a major spring cleaning of our house.
I did get my Bernina 710 back in time to finish the quilt.  I had probably done about 80% of the quilting with my old 440 and it worked great through the entire process.  But having the 710 and the extra space under the arm made a world of difference!  I could easily quilt the feathered wreaths in the center of the quilt without cramming the rest of the quilt under the machine.  It was wonderful!  And between free-motion quilting and straight line quilting with the walking foot, I had no issues with the Invisafil thread shredding this time around.  Hooray! 
For those of you that are curious, the upper thread is Invisafil (100% polyester, 100 weight, very fine) and the bobbin thread is Mettler Metrosene (100% polyester, fine).   The batting is Hobb's Heirloom 80% cotton/20% polyester.  I use this batting predominately because I really like a flat, crinkled, vintage look.  I did wash the quilt prior to binding it.  I know many quilters have made the transition over to the wool battings but I have yet to do so.  Something about wool in Florida just doesn't sound appealing to me!  But I do think the quilts that are quilted with the wool battings are just spectacular and I will probably eventually try one just to see if I like it.
All the straight lines, the two cable borders, and the straight lines behind the large feathered border were done with a walking foot.  The feathered wreaths in the white squares and feathered border were all free-motioned.  I did use the Schmetz #75/11 quilting needle and I did slow down my quilting speed.  I also lowered my tension even more than what my dealer suggested.  Part of the reason for this is that I used a pale pink thread in the bobbin to match the backing and with the tension set at 3.0, I could see little pink dots of thread coming to the top of the quilt in the holes the needle left behind.  So for free-motion quilting I set the tension down to 2.0 and for walking foot quilting, I set the tension at 2.25.  The stitch quality looks fine on both the front and back and this eliminated any bobbin thread from showing on the top side.  I did not have a single thread breakage!  Back to being a happy quilter!
And I just want to thank those of you that cheered me on for my perseverance!  I appreciate the support!  I'm sure you've all been in a situation at least once where you keep asking yourself, why the heck am I going to so much trouble and aggravation??  But the extra effort is generally worth it in the end and I will admit that I really am happy with the way this turned out.
And one last thank you. . . .I LOVE all of the comments and e-mails you all are sending me and I am just so overwhelmed at the response I've gotten from all of you!  I know I don't blog nearly as often as many popular bloggers do, but I really do appreciate your loyalty and sticking around in spite of that.  You really have no idea how broad of an audience you have when you blog, there are stats you can check to see how many hits a post gets, but as far as readership, I am truly clueless as to how big of an audience I have.  Sometimes I wish I could take a roll call!  But it is just so reassuring to have real live feedback from you and it lets me know that I am not just writing to some void in outer space!  So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading, commenting, and for your support!  Hugs to all of you! 
I may be gone for a bit longer between posts since I have tons to catch up on, but don't worry, I will update you as soon as I have something to show you again.  Happy Quilting. . .

6 comments:

  1. Rahna your quilt is lovely, and I am so glad your issues were resolved with your new machine and you could use it to finish your masterpiece. Enjoy, you certainly deserve it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!! As much as I love a scrappy quilt there is something about a two color quilt that just calls out to me. So calming. I am just about to quilt cables with the walking foot on a close replica of your Forty Cents quilt. I never would have thought to do that if I had not found your blog, so thank you! I'm sure your bedroom makeover will be beautiful. Can't wait to see the finished room!

    ReplyDelete
  3. simply gorgeous!!! I love feather quilting. Beautiful 2 color quilt.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have come across your beautiful quilt today and was wondering if there was a pattern that you used?

    ReplyDelete