Machine quilting is a pain in the butt to me LOL – I know you get done a lot faster than hand quilting a large quilt but I can’t sit and quilt for more than 45 minutes or so before I get up and move around. BUT I must say over all I am very pleased with the quilting and have not run into any problems other than running out of bobbin thread two times without realizing it and zipping through those straight lines only to come to an end of a row and find that half the row was out of thread! No tension issues as of yet!
Here I am starting my second row of stitches going across the tumblers I have one row all the way throughout the quilt now. I still plan to turn the quilt and go the opposite way still following the line of the tumblers just as I would if I was hand quilting. Maybe it is overkill but I want the shape of the tumblers to stand out on the back also and just think it will look nice. I am linking up to A Quilting Readers Garden today and Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I’m also linking to Prairie Sewn Studios and Crazy Mom Quilts.
The back
This much done on the stars Wednesday night – I usually end each evening at the quilting frame for awhile.
I have tomatoes sitting on the counter top trying to ripen inside – the organic spray Neems has not worked so far for getting rid of the little pin worms drilling holes in the tomatoes and rotting from the inside out, so I am picking them as soon as they get big – hope I beat the worms and will just have to do it this way and ripen inside – this problem is only in one bed of the tomatoes and so far has not spread to the other – but that bed the tomato plants are kind of skinny and scrawny and not doing well anyhow.
Beginning to have too many zucchini and it is going in just about everything that I can add it to – and the cucumbers are beginning to add up too, but not enough to do pickles – well put some in a vinegar solution for refrigerator pickles instead. I pulled out all the green beans the heat has done them in and not doing well. I go outside at 7 PM every evening to water all the plants and pick what needs picking and then back to the A/C. Last night I put oregano in the dehydrator and it will be ready for me to crush and put in a jar in first thing this morning.
I do believe the heat is to stay now for the rest of the summer and we will just learn to live with it as always! It is near 80 when we get up in the morning and around 88 to 92 every day up here on our ridge that we live on – down in the valley just 5 minutes drive away though it is near 100 every day.
Karen, I love the large polka dot fabric you’re using for the back! And your tumbler quilting looks great so far. I just finished a baby quilt on a grid. Need to take a photo – maybe later today.
As for sewing with linen, you may already have found out that it isn’t easy. It shifts a lot after washing, so you may want to sew before washing. But it also shrinks a bit. A friend gave me a whole bunch of pieces from old clothes. I made a couple of patchwork blocks into pillows for her. I do love the subtle colors.
Our cherry tomatoes are just getting some color now. I have a plant in a pot in the driveway. They get plenty of sun and heat. A couple of years ago, someone in the condo assn. complained but I pointed out that there is nothing in the “rules” that says we can’t grow vegetables. (We have some cranks around here!) Anyway, I now grow tomatoes in nicer pots with flowers around them. No more complaints, so far.
The heat is back here, too. 89F with a “real feel” of 105F by afternoon. Quite a bit of rain yesterday into the night resulted in dense fog this morning! Your tumbler quilt will be awesome and ‘kudos’ for doing it on the machine!!!! A little variety……………………. like hand quilting, once you are accustomed to the process it becomes easier!!!!!!!
The only way I’d consider machine quilting is if I could mimic the look of hand quilting. So if I were going to quilt your tumbler quilt, I’d be doing the same way you are. But I do have one question … how are you going to manage quilting along the “diagonal” edges? Straight across seems easy enough – no jig-jagging lines to stitch.
It’s heating back up here (not that the upper 80s a couple of days ago would be considered cool).
I got my tumbler die, and while I really thought that my paper-pieced Kaleidoscope would be the next quilt after I finish up my Kiss quilt, I’ve been seeing a lot of tumbler quilts online lately and am thinking maybe I’ll make a tumbler quilt next. Decisions, decisions. ha!
I prefer hand quilting also because I seem to have more control than using a machine plus it’s easier to start and stop on a hand quilted quilt, if you ask me. BUT, I do end up machine quilting a lot of quilts. I’m no expert at either method and have a lot to learn either way.
I love your hand quilting on the Stars.
I don’t have tomatoes or zuchinni or cucumbers or beans yet. My problem this year is the groundhogs.
It’s supposed to be 93 here today and I don’t have a/c!
Well itmlooks like your garden kicked into high gear and only a few weeks ago you were wondering if you would get anything! Machine quilting is stressful on the body and I think 45 minutes a day is a great pace.
That is a humungous quilt! Is it a king? I quilt for 20 minutes, get up and do something else and then come back 20 minutes later and do some more. I’m assuming you’ll be zig-zagging the tumblers in the other direction. This is going to one great quilt, Karen! Thanks for linking to WIPs Be Gone so I could catch up with your progress.
The machine quilting looks good so far! You are correct though that it can be tiring to sit and quilt for a long period of time. Since I do a lot of machine quilting, I typically will only do it in 20 minute sessions and I try to make myself get up and move around a bit in between the sessions. If I need to cut fabric, I’ll get things setup and then do some machine quilting for 20 minutes or so, and then get up and cut fabric for 5 minutes, then go back to machine quilting.
One of the tricks I learned with machine quilting is that I load two bobbins when I quilt. One is loaded with the bobbin thread and the other with the top thread. I put the bobbin with the top thread on my spool holder (versus the full spool of thread) and then start quilting. I typically use the same amount of thread between top and bottom, so I know when I’ll run out of bobbin thread because I can see how much thread I have left on the top.
love your quilts really like the backing fabric. My tomato’s are ripening on my table to
2nd sunny day here and I was just visiting my mom and explaining that is sounded like summer today, in that the bees and cicadas were making noise whereas they must stay in when it rains.
Tumbling into insanity is an amazing quilt coming along at it’s own pace… don’t push yourself. Loving your batik stars too! That background fabric is so beautiful too.. buttercream I think you called it.. lovely!
So happy you are enjoying the harvest from your garden.. sorry you are having to ripen your tomatoes inside though…
Love the new fabrics you wrote about yesterday too… awesome trade for sure!
Kathi
I love your star quilt and the hand quilting!
I never realise when my bobbin has run out either, normally when I’m FMQing.
Try putting a banana near your tomatoes in the house. It gives off natural chemicals which makes things ripen quicker
I really love the tumbler quilt. I’m about to start my 2nd quilt of the mini-tumblers. They are so fun. For my tomatoes, I’ve always used “Sven Dust” to keep the bugs down. Doesn’t get rid of them completely, but it will lessen them. You seem to be bringing in a good crop though.