Testing 1, 2, 3...Part 2

 

After a few weeks of work here and there it is finally done! I was testing this pattern Happee Tree for Laura Bittel of Hiz and Herz. As much as I would love to spend all my time quilting, my main gig is as a full time kindergarten teacher. This week was Valentine's Day, The Rockland Read In, The 100th Day of school, we also celebrated 3 birthdays! In between all the festivities, I managed to finish quilting this!

Kinks in the Pfaff

So if I have any followers out there...hi Mary! Ok, back on track, during the summer I traded up my Janome Memory Craft for the fancier Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0. At first things were great, like the beginning of any new relationship. Then BANG a couple months in the drama starts, the love fades. The thread is shredding and I can only free motion quilt for a few inches before drama occurs. Yes, much like a failing relationship, my machine and I could only stand each other for short bits of time before a we would hit another bump in the road. Well the final straw came when I literally (with freakish strength) pulled the bobbin winder holder thingy (technical name) off the machine. YIPES! Now the machine that I don't love anymore is broken! THANK GOD! No really, because when I brought my machine in to the shop where I bought it, I had a talk (angry customer to over zealous salesman) that changed my whole relationship, we'll call it machine therapy. He had so many little tips, things that I had forgotten. I've never been so happy about breaking something in my life.

So, if you are the owner of a Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0 and you are having machine drama please check out these few steps that could help out a bit....

1. When you set the machine for free motion quilting by selecting sensormatic free motion, make sure you disengage the IDT ( I was forgetting to do this as this is the first machine I owned with IDT).

2. Pfaff Quilt Expression does not like quilting free motion style with Coats and Clarks thread...it does like Gutermann cotton and polyester threads.

3. When you go to change your machine setting to sensormatic free motion, right below that change the Pivot Height to -2.

4. Make sure your feed dogs are lowered.

I know some of these are silly, BUT I was having such a hard time and was feeling intense feelings of regret. I made these little adjustments and just finished quilting a 45" x  45" wall hanging with no machine drama at all!

My relationship is renewed and I have fallen in love all over again....just in time for Valentine's Day!

Birthday Wishes Come True

1. A gentle reminder that it's still winter......check +

2. Quiet time to work on quilts or just lay around....check +

3. Time with family....coming soon! = A happy 34th for me!

Testing 1, 2, 3!

One of my very dear quilting pals (who is so unbelievably talented and creative) asked me to a pattern that I'm hoping she finds a way to publish. It is such a fun quilt to look at and make. The pattern is called Happee Tree. Check out Laura Bittel's page here: Hiz and Herz 

She has beautiful quilts and other fun sewn items to share!

  I've decided to use some fat quarters and scraps from Pillow and Maxfield's Gypsy Bandana. Here's how it's going....

 So I've started playing around with how my Happee Tree will look, not quite finished with my leaves, but couldn't wait to arrange the ones I have made so far! Tune in for more post Super Bowl progress!