Prewound Bobbins….yea or nay??

I HATE to wind bobbins, especially when I am in the middle of a project and have to stop and unthread everything.

I have recently been hearing people talking about pre-wound bobbins and my initial, frugal reaction was “why would I want to spend money on those?”

THEN, I started thinking about the fact that I would have been paying money for the thread anyway, and what I was saving was TIME, and we all know how valuable IT is!!

So, I relaxed my purse strings and purchased two sets of Pre-wound bobbins for Julio, my Juki Sit-Down long arm……

I loaded a cream-colored one into the bobbin casing and started quilting……

Okay….the top looks GREAT!!!

But the BIG test is how the back looks…..

WOW….even on this loose-weaved practice fabric, the tension looks amazing.

I think that I have found a keeper!!!

So where are you…..Prewound Bobbins………

Let ‘er rip!!

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I had SO much fun quilting the Teddy Bear Baby quilt…..

Since I was “in the groove” I decided to keep on quilting, this time on a charity quilt that had been in my “to-do” pile for almost a year!!!

As I quilted along on it, I realized that I felt comfortable going FASTER!! I normally set my speed to about 50-60% but this time I ramped it up to 80%…..

….and after a few minutes at that speed, moved on up to 100%!!

It was SO much fun!!

I put together a video of some of the quilting that day. You will hear a bit of muttering from me as I stop and contemplate what I am going to quilt next…..

Here are a few up-close photos of the quilting….

There was so much freedom in “letting ‘er rip”. I hope that you will try it on your machine!!

And please consider joining “MOVE IT….a free-motion quilting bootcamp”. Here are the details……

You can sign up HERE.

Westalee Spin-E-Fex Ruler #3

I have taken a small break from demonstrating the Westalee Spin-e-fex rulers but there are still two to go. So, today let’s take a look at the Spin-E-Fex Ruler #3…..

As you can see, this one is shaped a bit differently to the others. It produces a nice leaf or floral type design.

Have a look at the video and see how much fun this particular ruler can be…..

The “wreath” design is pleasing…..

….and if you flip the ruler over every other petal, you get a tulip sort of design when the two petals face each other……

I think that you will like the simplicity and ease of this ruler so, if you have it, pull it out and give it a whirl…..literally!!!

Quilt Big….

I am still trying to learn how to use Julio (my Juki Sit-down long-arm) and I think that it is going pretty well!!!

I am much more comfortable with using rulers and am seeing better speed control. But, I wanted to know if I could quilt BIG……fill a quilt with large format, unmarked designs.

I turned to another charity quilt for practice.

I visually divided the piece into four columns and started quilting using a different pattern in each area. The first was a simple side-to-side column down the middle of the quilt…..

Next was a simple stipple pattern…..

….followed by a loopy stipple…..

….and finishing with a funky flower with lots of echo quilting…..

The actual quilting only took about an hour….it took longer to baste and bind than it did to quilt!!!!

It was a great exercise in QUILTING BIG and was so much fun to just cut loose and quilt FAST….FAST…..FAST!!!

One thing that I learned is that I tend to clench my jaw when I am sewing on Julio, so guess I need to remedy that by putting loud music on and singing at the top of my lungs….you can’t clench and vocalize at the same time!!!

So….. if you are driving past my house and hear loud caterwauling, you will know that Julio and I are sharing some quality time!!