Margo wrote:
Thanks Margo!

Only fair to come and share the pictures, since I could not do this w/o the encouragement, tips, advice, etc. from all of you.

LisaWantsToKnow wrote:
Yes, that was me I bought a cute little Janome my last US trip so at least I have a machine that purrs along smoothly now.

I am a firm believer in, you never know if it's hard until you try. So, I just dive in/jump in and go for it. Then I'm too far invested to quit, so I plug on until I get it right

This is really great Heather, and I'm rooting for you! I admire how you accomplish quilty/sewing things despite the bumps in your road. I remember, (I think this was you?) your problems with a Bernina sewing machine that you needed instruction or service on, but the only place in Brazil that handled Bernina's was very, very far away? I'm just imagining the daily hiccups of living far from the plethora of services and retailers that I tend to take for granted. Way to go! FTW!

Heather, you and your son are making a fabulous project together and he will remember the good times every time he uses it!
Good job for both of you! Thanks for sharing your progress.

Thought I'd better update

I have finished the stitch-in-the-ditch parts of the quilting, and done one section of the comic strips via FMQ. Had to stall there thanks to many mistakes and errors along the way (broke the FMQ foot, thankfully super glue to the rescue and I could start again later) and now helping my boys through their school exams but we finish those today so this weekend/next week I should resume quilting.

I will repeat more or less what I've done on the first column of comic strips for the second column, then do the straight line (horizontal) (but using a decorative stitch) across the width of the quilt after that. oh, and will outline/echo quilt the red. Anyway, here are my first attempts at FMQ. It was both easier and harder than I thought --- mainly the difficulty is in maneuvering that bulk/weight around. My son likes it though so that is good

A few pics....

Learning-As-I-Go wrote: And enjoying passing on things that we have found helpful. It is always nice to help someone towards a lightbulb moment of their own.

By the way here is how I wedged my spongethe foot pedal is on a block so that I can reach it and it has a plastic storage box behind it to keep things from moving too far (besides which that is where the box lives anyway )

loise98 wrote:
not easy to entertain; thoughtful enough to be a constant encouragement to the fledgling quilter in the group

This is exciting! I am embarrassed that I am so easy to entertain.

PosyP wrote:
re: starting in the middle and going out, I thought about that....I'll have to see when I get there. Have done all the vertical ditch work today, will do (or start) the horizontal ditch work tomorrow and go from there.

Thanks for the tip about the machine pedal; I've been counting how many seconds it takes my hands to get through the machine while guiding it with the walking foot, to get an idea how fast/slow to move the fabric while FMQ, LOL!

I *think* the FMQ won't be bad since it is small sections, lots of times. In other words, outline one comic (5x7 area), then the next, then the next. We'll see; pivoting all that bulk to do those small squares sounds dreadful!

Def. never more than half to the right; that was bulky enough! Doing the ditch work today I did the dead center seam first, then one to the left, then one to the right, then did all the right hand ones, then the rest of the left hand ones. That dead center one was a bear, then the very outside one was awkward too because of ALL the bulk being over on the left (and I've scooted my machine to the farthest right corner of the table....), but I'm finding it not as hard as I feared, at least not this straight line part. We'll see about the rest......

Thanks all for being so encouraging, as always

For myself, once the central red comic section is quilted I would then start there and stitch towards the outer edge, rather than the other way around. Also to consider, you don't want to have more than half the quilt to the right of the needle if you can possibly help it - bulk in the harp of the machine would give you less manuvering room.

By the way I was able to wedge a kitchen sponge under the far/wide edge of my machine pedal and that slowed down the speed of my machine a bit, which made fmq easier. If lines are not stitching smoothly, it might be that you need to speed up the movement of the hands - not the machine! Personally when I was finishing my Too Loud Man quilt last week I came to the conclusion that using a walking foot and stopping to pivot all the time was not a dreadful way to go... it was certainly easier than trying to do fmq over large areas

PS envy your basting area - you've got space to walk around the outside of your quilt!

I think you can do exactly what feels best for you when you sit there.

loise98 wrote:
No thread changes, but I'm going to use one type of stitch in the black section, and a different stitch in the white section. So I'm not sure can I just start on one edge of the quilt and go all the way across, not stitch on the red/comic parts (because they will already be quilted in their own design and I don't want to "run over" the comics), then start stitching again on the opposite section, in the new stitch and go out to that edge. To save repositioning the quilt, mainly.

I can do the little trick of actually stopping, pull up the bobbin thread, snip and bury, then move the quilt to the next bit and start again. Just wanting to make sure there's no big error with 1) starting on the edge and 2) skipping over the middle. I can't see why there would be, but......

Much to do before I get to that point so that's good. And definitely not a surprise; he had to help choose which comics to print on fabric, chose the layout from various designs I drew up for him, etc.

I think you are doing fine. All I can say is that I am so glad you are not trying to keep this as a surprise. I am not sure I understood your question? Are you wanting to skip over the middle to start to avoid thread changes? I have not machine quilted anything that big so I wouldn't have good advice for you anyway, but I thought clarifying the question might help so that someone more experienced could offer suggestions. Good luck! I think it looks super and I can't wait to see it finished.

Margo wrote:
thanks, Margo! I'm finally over being scared of it, and ready to go. Can't wait to come back with pictures of the finished quilt!!

(and SO GLAD hubby is letting me take over the big table!)