The Best Laid Plans...

Saturday, I was very excited to get some free motion quilting done. I got up at 6AM to baste 2 projects + a doodle cloth on Saturday, and then spent the day at one of the local quilt-shops retaking Mary Ann's "Intro to Free-Motion Quilting" to 1) freshen up and 2) pick her incredibly useful brain. I got some pretty good practice in on a design from Free Motion Quilting Made Easy by Eva Larkin:

Quilted by yours truly! This is the good side if you can't tell.

But alas, while I was practicing, I noticed that my machine was occasionally doing odd things on the back of my quilt - it would leave little 1 millimeter loops here and there, like it hadn't quite gotten the opportunity to pull tight on the bobbin for that stitch. Strange, right?

As quilters go, I am far from a perfectionist. Mostly so far I have made quilts for kids, and as a general rule I subscribe to the idea that if you can't see it from more than 3 feet away, and it's not big enough for the batting to escape en masse, then it is not a problem. But in this particular case, the little loops failed a "feel" test - you could tell they were there when you ran your hand over the back of the quilt, and they didn't feel good when you rubbed them. Let's just say appearances are one thing, but in my house you don't mess with the cuddliness!

A Janome DC 2007 LE like mine

I work off a very beloved Janome DC 2007 LE. It was the floor model for the dealer before it belonged to me, and although it probably initially thought it had settled into easy retirement when I took it home to make a few dance costumes annually, for the past year and a half I have been exercising it quite regularly. Much as I hate to be without my baby, I had to concede that after all that work, it could probably use a servicing. My little machine is now remembering its roots at the very store I bought it from:

The Stitching Post

I dropped it off yesterday, and already I am going into withdrawls.  It is probably good for me that I now have motivation to say, go to the gym and run errands, but doing what you should is never quite as fun as doing what you want to, right?

Come back soon, my little Janome!