Sunday, August 3, 2014

Some longarm quilting


I have been busy quilting through some technical difficulties.  There seem to be bad gremlins that live in my quilt studio ... When I'm not looking they love to mess with my longarm machine and cause problems.  I take great care of my machine ... Cleaning and oiling between bobbins as I am supposed to.  I have a dust cover and cover it when the machine is not in use ... But through all this, little problems still arise.  The first problem was I would have long stitches when quilting from right to left, only when I was trying to go in a fairly straight line, not during all over free motion quilting.  Upon further inspection, and a lot of frustration, I realized the wheels that ride on the back of the machine carriage that glides on the frame were not all hitting the frame ... One in particular was not making a good connection at all ... That messes with the stitch regulator, and it won't read correctly ... Now how do wheels all of a sudden stop connecting on the track properly ... Gremlins!  So I got out my tools and adjusted two wheels ... Now one of them is a little too low on the track so it is creating a little stiffness when I hit certain areas, but I'll take stiffness any day over long stitches that have to be ripped out!  

Then all of a sudden bobbin tension was not quite tight enough ... Kept tightening and tightening but still it didn't look great.  Decided to remove the bobbin washer that is supposed to help the bobbin spin more smoothly ... All of a sudden perfect tension ... I have been using a bobbin washer for 3 years ... Why doesn't it work now .... Gremlins!  I can't find a great imagine of what I think my gremlins look like .  But this is as close as I can imagine
Haha!  They're not bad little guys, just mischievous!

Once I got these snafus under control, I got this great quilt done ...
A beautiful sampler quilt Jayne made
Her piecing was so beautiful I didn't want to take away from it so I just did a loopy swirl
See the beautiful bobbin tension?
Please forgive this terrible picture , but it gives you an idea what I got to look at while I was quilting!  Used my favorite Omni bronco color thread in top and bobbin.  Now if only the gremlins will stay away so I can get some more quilting done!

1 comment:

jayne said...

Thank you Colleen - as always your work is awesome!!!!!