Thank you, Karen

Marianne I love your baskets and the quilted block is beautiful!

PosyP wrote:
Rosemary, I don't think you are a philistine and I fiddle with the tension on my machine all the time and sometimes forget so I only discover when I have to frog stitch! You are so right it is much easier if the bottom tension is on the tight side We've all got to find what works for us.

I have just finished watching Jinny Beyer and Jo Morton. I noticed that neither really tackled what happens when you put blocks together. Jo Morton had wonderful flat seams but always sashing or plain/appliqué blocks between pieced ones. Jo Morton's snipping makes a lot of sense and even though I have watched her show before I had not noticed where she snips or how. I will now watch the classroom videos to see if anything pops up there in the ones with Jinny Beyer.

Marianne

I might be a bit of a philistine when it comes to thread tension, but I like to have it a bit out - you know, not perfectly balanced, but with the top a bit loose compared to the bottom. The reason for this - it is sooo much easier for frogging , and I haven't yet had any problems with seams falling apart yet - well it works for me

I like you babbling on . I'm glad you found your way and decided what to do. When I have to sew on thick material, I put on my jeans foot and the machine just goes on like a dream. I did not know how much help that foot is. I spend a lot of time changing needles and feet on my projects. We are lucky to have all those helpers

suehenyon wrote:
Oh a leather needle does wonders for thick stuff and you can even have cutwork around the edges
No seriously, I agree. The "change your needle" note I have on my machines is not just there to remind me to keep a newish needle in the machine but also to change when I go from seaming to hemming to elastic. One size does not fit all! neither when it comes to thread, fabric or thickness nor does one kind of needle/foot fit all jobs in hand. We are so lucky that these days the choice is so big when it comes to needles and feet so we can pick the best and not have to make do like our mothers had to.
One thing I have noticed when I turn the handle on my computerised machine to hand crank it over something it does not like it is so much harder to push through compared to my mechanical machine needle/fabric/foot being the same. Maybe the computerised machines are meant to have speed behind to cope with the thicker seams whereas the mechanical machines rely more on thrust???????
I am always scared to put my computerised machine out of timing so hesitate to go pedal to metal and thereby actually do more damage to it than if I did put my foot down?
Now why do I always come up with more questions when I start to think about these things
Thanks for your thoughts, Sue!
Marianne

Zarah wrote:
Thank you, Norma.
Re pressing open - I did a bit of testing on this and found that a shorter stitch length is needed when opening the seams. A quilt is really not like a piece of clothing which I found was some peoples reasoning when they defended pressing seams open. What I did was to make 2 small sandwiches one with the seams stitched with 10 stitches/inch (perhaps a bit open for piecing but that is about 2.5 mm and used when making clothes) and another with 17 stitches/inch. I used 60 weight cotton thread which I like because it takes up less space than 50 weight. I pressed the seams open and made a sandwich. I quilted close to the seams but not in the seams (I would weaken the threads if I hit it with the needle obviously) and also about 3/8" away from the seams. Then washed, dried in tumble dryer like I do with all my quilted stuff several times and then I abused it. Pulled and stretched in a all directions, squished and squashed and eventually managed to pull one of the seams that had been quilted away from the seam and seamed with the longer stitch length apart. I did not alter the tension at all! I decided that I am very happy to open seams if it means a flatter quilt sandwich but I will use a shorter stitch length which I now does all the time because I don't know which seams I will open and which I will press to the side. I do struggle with size because I am not consistently pressing open and it does make a difference when a block contains mixed seam pressing techniques (what a mouth full).
An added bonus of shorter stitch length too is that the blocks can cope with more handling - a downside is that it is very hard to frog stitch
Oh and one other thing to note here is that not all machines' stitch length settings are the same. A Husqvarna/Viking machine set to 2 and a Bernina computerised machine set to stitch length 2 does not produce the same length stitch. Even my mechanical Bernina set to 2 and my 730 set to 2 produces different results. Isn't sewing interesting
Sorry didn't mean to babble on
Marianne

Reetzbobeetz wrote:
Actually, my fancy computerized machine does pretty dang well if her owner remembers to put on the correct presser foot and use a heavier needle when sewing tough items

Reetzbobeetz wrote:
Rita, I am very lucky because I have a 30+ year old Bernina that will sew through most things but do not at all like modern thread like invisible and although I do have a Bernina walking foot for it and it should fit it does not really fit all that well because it is not the same age as the machine - I only got it about 6 years ago - never could afford it when I first got the machine I will try your method though raising the foot and "carry" the computerised machine over the bumps when it comes back from its service. Great tip. Thanks
Marianne

Your baskets are beautiful. It's so easy to get caught up in making things like these.

Most of the time I open up my seams. I like it much better and I can get my block the exact size that way. I'm struggling with that problem when ironing the seam to the side. Then I don't often quilt directly in the ditch but try to figure out how the quilting can be of best support to the quilt. I have never had problems with quilts unraveling. One thing I do when I piece is using a shorter stitch length and put a bit more tension on the thread. My Bernina 830 has a stitch in the quilting section, that does that for me automatically. (Stitch no 1326 for you 830 owners)

Cheers Marianne, I shall have fun making some

Thanks for the link to the pattern Marianne, I will have a look after this. As for stitching in the ditch, I do use a walking foot - with an open toe and invisible thread in the top of the machine (Aurifil in the bobbin). When I get to the intersections if the seams are not meeting perfectly (always the aim but not always successful there ) I raise the needle, lift the presser foot and shift it to where it needs to be so that there are no awkward stitches showing. If I am stitching around applique then I use the darning/free-motion foot and do it in FM.

I know how you feel about stitching over the bulky seams and I have to say that my Pfaff Select 4 (which is a much more basic machine than my Janome Horizon) does this best. I think the fancier computerized machines are not designed for this kind of donkey work at all. If you have an old singer machine it would probably do it best of all because they were really designed to stitch though anything and still keep the stitches straight.

Hi Rita,
Thank you - I will check out Jo Morton's show too. Still working my way through Jinny Beyer's offerings Rosemary suggested. I will give the wet paint brush a go. I pre-wash my fabrics so should not have problems with bleeding. I try to stay away from stitching in the ditch because I find it very difficult to make it look nice when I go across intersections. Do you FMQ in the ditch or use a walking foot/jeans foot with the feeddogs up?
Reetzbobeetz wrote: The pattern for the baskets is here:
http://www.seaside-stitches.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/fabric-box-tutorial.html
I played around a bit with the size of the square to fit the size of my blocks and with the corner pockets. One word of warning though - using blocks makes the edges very thick and even my Bernina baulked at sewing on the buttons because they hit intersecting seams (can you tell I have problems with seams wherever I venture these days? ) They are quite addictive once you have made one you could easily get carried away. I will make more for Christmas but next time I will put a border on the blocks so the top ends up being more neat. I tried out 3 different kind of wadding: fleece, as in leftover bits of a fleece blanket from IKEA, curtain interlining and ordinary light cotton wadding. I found that for these it does not really matter what you use. Great project to practise FMQ AND use up blocks.
Marianne

Jo Morton suggests what Rosemary is saying in her show here on TQS - sorry can't remember the number. I saw a youtube video with Sharon Shambers where she suggested using a paint brush with water on it to dab at the seams and then press them. Apparently it's what they do in the garment industry to get really flat seams and joins. It does work, better than just using a steam iron. The problem with starching too much is that it will possibly make it too stiff. I am working on a quilt at the moment where lots of the seams ended up going in the same direction etc., and I did like Jo Morton suggested and snipped them close to the edge but I don't think it makes them flat enough. But if I pressed all the seams open then I would not be able to do stitch in the ditch. Sometimes it's hard to get everything right.

Love your baskets Marianne, particularly the one with the outside corner pockets. Care to share the pattern?