Quilt shows are always fun, whether big or small. For some quilters, getting to Paducah or Houston can be a once in five to ten years thing, and going to both is not an option. I’ve been to both, as well as to a couple of the Quilt Expo shows in Europe, and I thought a bit of a review might be in order. If your’re on the fence about which one to visit this season, you may find this useful, so here’s my two cents:

In Houston, there are more choices for lodging, so even if the “recommended and on the shuttle bus route” hotels are full, there are many other choices. However, this also means that if you’re not at one of the hotels on the shuttle route, you’ll either be figuring out Houston’s public trans system, Read the rest of this entry »

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I love these snips! They are so perfect for machine quilting, because you can get really close to the quilt to trim the threads, but you won’t risk cutting the fabric (as I’ve done before with other scissors!). I need to order another pair so I have a spare, because if I lose them, it’s a really bad thing. I’ve also used them to trim threads when I do machine embroidery, but now I see there’s a new snip on the market that might be better for that:

Interestingly, it doesn’t seem like these are made by the same company. Go figure. Nancy’s Notions has both of these products.

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Here’s the view today:

I was looking forward to using many different colors of thread on this quilt, since I wanted to match or coordinate with the appliqué pieces for the quilting. I have been collecting threads for a while (variegated threads are just as hard to resist as fat quarter bundles for me!) and getting to actually use them on something was exciting. So, all that being said, changing the thread color every few minutes is somewhat painful, as is winding a bobbin with every different thread. I’m running out of empty bobbins! I used a white Fairy Frost fabric for the backing, and I wanted to see the quilting on the back in all the different colors. I’m hoping the back will look sort of like a line drawing of the front when it’s done.

I really didn’t even consider using just one color of thread on the back (which would have taken care of the bobbin problem), because I would have had pop-throughs of different colors of thread on the back, as well as bobbin thread on the top, no matter how well the tension was adjusted on the machine. That’s just the way of it when free motion quilting in all directions, you’re always going to have a spot where the tension doesn’t behave just right, and it has nothing to do with how good your machine or your technique is. My standard rule is to always match the threads on the top and backing to avoid this problem.

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