Days 23, 24 & 25

I switched up my activities for days 23, 24, and 25. I decided to start some quilting. Day 23 had me pinning the itty bitty swap quilt on my quilting frame. The next day, I started quilting. It went pretty fast. I think I spent more time setting up and taking down than the actual quilting process. I also pinned my Halloween quilt on. Day 25 ended in a bit of disappointment. I started quilting the Halloween quilt but was having problems with the thread wrapping around the thread holder. It ended up breaking a needle. I tweaked the thread position and had nothing but problems. My tension went way off. I tried all of the normal tricks but still had the problem. I decided to walk away for awhile before I got too frustrated.

I either quilt my own quilts on my machine or send them out to another person to machine quilt them for me. I have taken a couple machine quilting classes and tried free-motion quilting where you move the quilt around to get the quilt designs. I decided that I couldn't quite relax enough to get a good product. I found that I got better results steering the machine not the quilt. I found a Grace Frame in a quilting catalog I get and decided to try it out. I love it. I am able to pin the quilts to the frame and start quilting. The only downfall is that since I am using just a regular sewing machine, I don't get much quilting width because the arm isn't very long. I took a couple pictures to get an idea of what it looks like.

Here is a shot of the whole thing. The backing and top get rolled up onto tubes and then you unroll as you quilt. There is also a back tube that you roll up the finished product. This keeps the quilt nice and tight. (Ignore the mess in the background. I am still adjusting to not having a sewing room anymore.)


Here is a close-up view. I use the wood handles to steer the sewing machine. It sits on a series of rollers that helps it move in any direction I want.