Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Making It Work - A Lesson In Patience

I've been channelling Tim Gunn this past few days (Project Runway for those of you scratching your head), and have babbled "make it work" on more than a few occasions.  You see, my darling Bernina came very close to being thrown through my wall on Friday, after repeatedly snapping threads and just being an all round biatch of a machine.  After the 542nd thread snap, I snapped.  And turned to my IG friends, asking for advice......  Which lead to Gemma texting me instructions to do this......


Well that was terrifying!  Thanks for that little lesson @prettybobbins 

After holding my breath for a while, I managed to gently dust the machinery and dislodge a little thread in the uptake thingamajig, then put it back together again.......  It worked for a whole five minutes then 
SNAP!!!!

I called the dealer I bought her from (in Tasmania) and walked through some trouble shooting, and she gave me the bad news that I'd need to take her somewhere to be looked at.  Thinking tension discs or a burr on the bobbin case.  Sigh......

Anyway, I picked up my bottom lip and rang my Mum.  Drove around there and picked up this......

So after a call to my Bernina dealer in tassie.....ive booked my baby in for a service and just picked up this one from my mum.  Shattered but grateful! 

Good old faithful!  I used this for quite some time before buying my own Bernina, and it's an absolute work horse.  HOWEVER....  it has no quilting extension table thingy, nor a walking foot, nor a zipper foot.  Hence, I have had to make it work.

Trying to make fmq work with my mums old bernina. #imissmymachine #todolistssuck 

My to do list this week is literally packed.  And I was so depressed about my missing baby, I couldn't bring myself to sew.  Kicked myself up the bum this morning and got out my big extension table and just sort of sat it there.  Worked out how to drop the feed dogs and whacked on the fmq foot and just gave it a crack.

M is for Mitchell 

And ta-daaaaa!  Look, it's far from perfect, but given there's no needle down function, the fmq foot is not actually genuinely made for this machine and the dodgy way I had the extension table set up - it's pretty damn good!  I had this cushion cover top finished a few days ago - it's a birthday gift for one of my youngest daughter's friends.  M is for Mitchell!  I pulled out a bag of scraps leftover from my SON's QUILT, which I knew eventually would come in handy!  The letter M is from Quietplay's alphabet patterns, and is super easy.

M is for Mitchell 

I literally started in the middle of the cushion and worked my way outwards.  There's some wonk in those "organic" straight lines!  But I am actually very impressed with the consistent stitch length - that's one tick!  I used my go to thread - Aurifil #2024.

M is for Mitchell

Once I got the the white space, I tried a little pattern I've seen around, and just love it!  I can see myself using it on a bigger scale on quilts.

I'm not even showing you the back!  Let's just say that inserting a zipper without a zipper foot is not my forte!  But hey - six year old boys are not likely to criticise?  I hope?

All in all, it has been a very interesting experience.  I have learnt patience in my quilting.  After I'd finished this cushion, I kept going and finished off two other cushion cover tops for Collaborate For A Cause.  And the quilting is actually incredibly neat and as I said before, the stitch length is perfect.  So there's a lot to be said for quilting with anxiety!  I am however looking forward to a phone call from the service guy telling me I can pick up my baby!

I'm linking up - You can too!


Sew Cute Tuesday


7 comments:

  1. The pillow is a perfect gift! I can't manage to use my zipper foot for zippers, so I just use my quarter inch foot and it works perfectly.

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  2. oh i hear you, my machine has tension issues too since 2 days so I switched to my grandmas machine, and this one cant quilt lol, but she can sew and this made me happpy again, hope your machine will be rapaired soon

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  3. My machine takes little "I'm not gonna work today" spells too. I have to unthread her, take her apart and find its usually a tiny piece of thread that ends up somewhere it's not suppose to be. :) it's a pain - I hope you get your machine back soon!

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  4. Your FMQ under all that duress is better than mine with all the accoutrements! LOL. Now what you really ought to do is pick a project which is simple and just play, til your own machine gets back. That will lessen the stress levels.

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  5. These machines have a mind of their own. My Janome decided to throw fits two days ago. I was in no mood to pamper it and beg and plead for it to work. I set it aside and set up my old machine (no needle down,no thread clipper, doesn't lower the feed dogs, etc.) It was 'good enough'. I believe this humbled the new machine and it was forced back into service for when I plugged it in this morning I got good results! Cleaned out the bobbin area and it just sewed like a dream!?!

    Love your pillow. Good job -- even with the lesser machine. :-)

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  6. Hi! Your pillow is beautiful! I love the colours and the letter! I have the same pattern and they are great. x Teje

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