So, in my last post I mentioned the special project I am working on quilting. I spent a good part of the weekend on this project although did take Monday off as it was a holiday here in BC. My partner and I took his Mom back up to Nanaimo where she lives. My partners sister had brought Mom Finley down to stay with her here in Victoria for the weekend so we drove her back home on the Monday. The traffic driving up the island to Nanaimo was unreal!! I have never seen it so busy and I have lived here all my life. I did the driving as my partner drives the highway almost every day so I figured I would let him be the passenger for a change. Good thing too as I don’t get as stressed as he does. Although sitting at the Spencer Road bottleneck for over 25 minutes just trying to leave Victoria was not fun! The picture below is actually the McKenzie Road bottleneck but you get the idea.
I had left the quilt 75% quilted and thought that I would spend a couple of hours on it on Tuesday and it would be done!! Not so. The last two borders to quilt were black and I had been using So Fine 50 black thread on the black areas however what I noticed is you really can’t see it, so I decided that I would use Superior Threads King Tut Black thread which is thicker to quilt the feathers in the last two black border areas. What a nightmare that turned out to be!.
The first black border to be quilted I had sectioned so that it was in quarters. The first two quarters were done without too many problems. I did notice some tension issues with the black King Tut thread and I remembered I had these same issues when quilting with this spool on another quilt but things seemed to be working so that was fine. Then I got to the third section and that is when things went horribly wrong. The tension issues I had experienced with the last quilt I had done with this thread resurfaced. The tension simply changes in midsection and not just a little!! A lot!! On the back no less so you have finished completely before you realize there is a huge problem. So much so that you can’t leave it. I tried everything, re-threading the machine. Rewinding a new bobbin. New needle, making sure there was no lint in the machine. Everything! Nope I had to rip that whole section out. Now what! I have already finished two sections, there is a deadline on this quilt and the only way to get Superior thread in Victoria is by mail order. I decided that the only way was to soldier on and just keep checking the quilting every couple of inches. It took hours and some more ripping but I finally finished that border at 10:00 pm last night. Even with using the thicker thread you can barely see the quilting on the black. I had left a channel in the feather stem to quilt some pearls in as I like that look but with the fact you really can’t see it and the time factor this will have to stay as is.
So I have one more border to go and I am NOT using that spool of thread. It is now in the garbage I used black thread on the black and white fabrics as well and if I had this to do over again I would use white thread.Something to file away in the back of my mind for next time. Black of course recedes and with that you can’t see the quilting at all.
So something that should have been fairly straight forward and finished by now is still on the frame and I was NOT a happy camper yesterday. Oh well today is a new day and I will need to come up with plan B for the last black border.
We are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel!
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