March 6th, 2011 - The Stash

Here it is, only the first week of March and already I’m in the negatives. Hopefully that won’t be the way for long. I purchased quite a bit of fabric but it’s mostly for backings and bindings. Once I’ve got those cut up, I’ll be back in the postives. If it wasn’t for the 16.5 yards that I got for the Crabapple Hill “Snow Days”,  it wouldn’t be an issue. And I’ve actually made 2 quilts out of the new fabric that are almost all quilted and ready to be bound.

  If only my new machine wouldn’t give me such grief. I have a Bernina 450 and I’m trying to quilt as many quilts as I can manage ,nothing larger than a twin. Anything bigger, I’ll send out to be quilted. Anyway,while I’m quilting a straight line, like stitching-in-the-ditch, and I stop with the needle down, lift the presser foot up and turn the quilt, when I start sewing again the thread breaks. It doesn’t matter what kind of thread either. I’ve changed the needle, changed the bobbin, rethreaded the machine, it still breaks. I took the machine back to the store and the only thing we could figure out was that I used spray-basting on the quilt. I’ve never heard of this breaking your thread. And last night when I was trying to use a rayon thread, it just wouldn’t sew at all. I’m thinking that this machine is a lemon or something. All that money and I can’t do what I want on it. I was also thinking, if it’s spray-basting, what about when you use the embroidery module? Don’t you have to use stabilizer and isn’t that adhered in some way like spray-basted to the back? If anyone have any suggestions or solutions, would you let me know.

 Anyway on to some numbers.

Fabric used this week: 11.04 yds

Fabric used YTD: 35.01 yds

Fabric added this week: 33.83 yds

Fabric added YTD: 50.33 yds

Net fabric busted: -15.32 yds 

 That’s all for this week. Now back to that terrible machine. Here’s to hoping I can at least get these 2 baby quilts done before they start kindergarten.

Mary-Kay

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 6th, 2011 at 12:48 pm and is filed under Quilting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “The Stash”

  1. Marti Says:
    March 6th, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    The year is young, and you used an impressive amount of yardage this week. Have you tried doing something without the spray basting and see what happens? That would be so annoying.

  2. liz Says:
    March 6th, 2011 at 3:53 pm

    Sorry to hear that you are having problems with the new machine. Have you tried quilting using a smaller piece that is not spray basted to see if the problem still occurs? My bernina guys are pretty good, so I would take that puppy back and ask them to figure it out! It’s too much money to be unhappy about it.

  3. Allie Says:
    March 7th, 2011 at 3:38 am

    Hm…no clue why your thread is breaking – maybe try a different size needle? I use embroidery needles for everything, lol, I buy them in bulk – Organ needles. It sounds like maybe your thread is getting twisted when you turn the quilt. How high is your thread as it feeds into the machine? Do you have a thread holder? One of the tall ones?

    The stabilizer I use for machine embroidery isn’t sticky; there are sticky kinds though. I just use a regular tearaway, bought by the bolt. It works for most everything.

  4. Lori in SD Says:
    March 9th, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    I’m not help, I haven’t a clue. But don’t worry about your stash, plenty of time to sew.

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