Cat Quilt for a Friend - Part 4

I got the Curious Kitties Cat quilt finished over the weekend despite my temperamental sewing machine. On Friday when I was quilting the cat silhouettes in the blocks, the tension problem became weirder. The tension started to flip flop between being a problem on the back of the quilt to the front of the quilt all within the same cat silhouette. I tried various adjustments of the tension, re-wound bobbins at different speeds, and nothing made a difference. So I persevered and got the quilt done since it had to be finished by the weekend so that I could get it in the mail for it to arrive in time for Christmas. Definitely frustrating but my friend isn't a quilter or a sewer so fortunately she won't understand these technical issues.

I got the machine quilting finished Friday evening so I took my machine to the shop on Saturday for a tuneup &/or repair. I should hear back by Tuesday whether it is a simple tuneup or something more major. I got the hand work done over the rest of the weekend and the quilt has been wrapped up and will be mailed off today after work. Below are some pictures of the finished quilt.

Here is the full quilt.


Cat silhouette facing right.

Cat silhouette facing left.

Sample of the border quilting.

Cat Quilt for a Friend - Part 3

Well I've been experiencing frustration with the thread tension in my free motion quilting on the Curious Kitties quilt. I'm using a new thread for me which is a good quality one from YLI made for machine quilting.

It's a beautiful seamist colour but the thread is considerably thicker than the previous threads that I have used (King Tut, Sulky, Guterman, etc.). When I was doing the stitch in the ditch portion I had no problems with the thread tension. I use a walking foot when I'm doing that task and that seems to eliminate issues with tension and slippage.

With this thicker thread and free motion quilting, I had to increase my tension a fair bit but it seemed to be a very fine line between where the settings were right for the tension on the right side of the quilt vs. the back of the quilt. When I go around curves the tension isn't quite right on the back and there doesn't seem to be a right setting to resolve that problem. It's minor, in that the person who is getting the quilt won't even know there is a problem because she doesn't sew. But none the less, I find it frustrating that I'm using this wonderful thread but it just won't behave. Hey at least it's working for the front of the quilt.

I had the machine in for servicing back in the summer but I also have been doing a lot of quilting. So once I'm done my projects for December I might take it back for another servicing to see if that might clear up my tension issues. I've had a few others issues with the tension that got resolved but it seems to keep cropping up.

Cat Quilt for a Friend - part 2

This weekend I finally got back to the cat quilt that I started back in September (see http://felinesandfibrearts.blogspot.com/2008/09/cat-quilt-for-friend.html ). Back then I just finished the top, had the fabric cut out for the back and it was left at that stage. I got the back sewn, the quilt sandwich put together and all the stitching in the ditch done. I found a nice cat silhouette to quilt in the squares and will have the cat facing right in the top row, then the second row will be the reverse with the cat facing left, third row back to cat facing right, etc.

In the border I plan to outline quilt the cats that are on the black background. So my aim is to get this quilt finished by the end of this week. Wish me luck.

Cat Quilt for a Friend

My first quilt that I decided to make this summer is going to be a Christmas present for a dear friend who has been a great help during this past year while I've been recovering from my surgery. She loves cats and has 2 furries herself so I decided to make a cat lap quilt for her.

I really liked the various cat fabrics that I selected for her quilt but I wished I had selected something else for the frames between the squares because the paws fabric actually has made the quilt a bit too busy. But once it was put together I wasn't about to rip it all apart so it will be a busy cat quilt. I know that she will still love it, but looking at it some more I wish I had gone with a turquoise frame.

So now I have to get the back put together and then I can start quilting. I should have plenty of time to get it done for early December.