Quilts for St. V's

The last few years I have been honored to help out the Wood County 4H program by making small quilts for St. V's Hospital.  It's nice to know that some premature baby will feel the warmth of love even though they're not at home with their parents.

On this quilt I used my wavy ruler and chalked out my wavy line for the feathered border.  I also chalked out a top line and bottom line so when I'm free motioning in the feathers,  I would know how big to make them.  It also helps me make them more uniform.  I did one side of feathers at a time.   It was fun to do this type of border and now I've had practice!

I had a little trouble with "bird's nests"  on the back of this quilt.  I'm not sure what the problem was, but I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has had this problem!


Happy Quilting!

Kay Lynne


Update--See the post below for the bird's nest cure!

Quilting The Spring Table Runner and Tips On Free Motion Quilting with a Janome 1600P

I finally have my Spring Table Runner all finished!

I was so excited about quilting the feathers on the table runner that I quilted the white background last!  Now every good quilting teacher would tell you to start in the middle and work your way out of the center.  I guess I have to be different.  Below is a picture of  an unquilted flower block.  It did get quilted without any puckers!  I used basting spray and safety pins to sandwich it together.

Quilting with my Janome 1600P has been a learning experience.  Below are a few tips that I have learned with my 1600P and may work on your model of sewing machine.

Make sure the pressure on the pressure foot is set on zero.

I set the stitch length on zero.

Set the needle up/down feature on down and I choose to go at turtle speed.

I used a high quality thread.  Pictured above is So Fine thread by Superior Threads and the other thread I used was Maxi-Lock thread.  I really love the color of the Maxi-Lock thread, but I had problems with little birds' nests on the back of my quilt.  I solved that problem by using the So Fine thread in the bobbin.  If you use two different threads, I think it is wise to use cotton with cotton and polyester with polyester.  I also used some rubber kitchen shelf liner underneath my cone thread so they stay put in one place.

I've also learned that tension in the 1600P has a lot of play.  There are so many new threads out there to explore and I'm always playing with my tension.  A new trick I have found on this machine is to tighten the tension as tight as I can get it.  Then I back off on the tension on my practice quilting until I get a perfect stitch.  If you are having trouble with skipped stitches, use a topstitch needle.  If you are still having skipped stitches, go to a bigger size needle.  Superior threads has the right size needle clearly printed on the bottom of the cone and I've found that their suggestions are always correct.  

So now my Janome and I are quilting in perfect harmony :)

Happy Quilting!

Kay Lynne