Tin Lizzie

Finally, I got to sew on my new sit down longarm, the Tin Lizzie! Funny thing is, I didn’t expect any sewing time at all this weekend, but due to sickness in two families, we’ve rescheduled Thanksgiving dinner to December 3rd.

So, how did I like quilting on the Tin Lizzie? I LOVED IT!!!

I started out by watching this YouTube video. I find it so much easier to learn how to thread and oil a new machine if I can watch a video. This video answered a lot of questions for me, and I learned so much!

I needed two different colored bobbins, one for each Christmas tree skirt I’m making. Once I got those made, I threaded the machine and went for it.

It’s been quite a while since I did any FMQ, so I’m opting for a meander. I was using Madeira Polyneon 40 wt thread and I had no problems whatsoever. The tension was perfect, no thread issues, it was just a joy to be quilting again. I am so thankful I was able to get the Tin Lizzie, because I can already tell it’s going to make quilting a big quilt so much easier!

I did finish quilting this tree skirt, but didn’t take a photo. I’ll do that when I’ve got the binding on.

My arm was hurting after a bit of quilting, but I have a slow healing injury so I expected that. I talked with DH, and I’m not going to quilt anything large until I get Patsy Thompson’s quilt suspension system. I also want to buy a queen sized Supreme Slider, which will also help with drag. For the tree skirts it’s not a big deal, but for a big quilt both of those will help a lot. The quilt suspension system and the Supreme Slider are what I need to make quilting easier on my arm, but I need one more thing to make it easier on my eyes.

I knew I would not find the lighting on the Tin Lizzie adequate, and I was right about that. It was really the only reason I debated so long between the Handiquilter and the Tin Lizzie. I was not interested in the type of stitch regulator the sit down Handiquilter has, and I started FMQ without stitch regulation, so I wasn’t too worried about not having it. It mostly came down to lighting and price. Lighting is better on the Handiquilter, but the Tin Lizzie was significantly less expensive. Today I found an LED flexible light bar that should fix my lighting issues for $30. I’ll take before and after photos once I get the light bar so you can see if I’m right about fixing the lighting problems. Since the Tin Lizzie was 2k less expensive, a $30 light kit is not a problem.

The Tin Lizzie is much quieter than I expected it to be, it’s easy to use, and I had no drama whatsoever on my first time using it. I hope to have many years with my Lizzie!

Beach Find

I was gone most of the last week, so no sewing was accomplished. One of my niece’s was getting married in Malibu, and I was thrilled we got to attend.

All my nieces are beautiful, but this one was especially lovely on her wedding day.

After the wedding, DH and I headed down to Oceanside, CA to enjoy some time at the beach without as much traffic as the LA area.

We saw some gorgeous sunsets, pretty drastically different from day to day. 

We hit a couple thrift stores in Oceanside, and I bought three rolls of fabric for a total of $30.

This tag was on the fabric far right. The roll was full, and did indeed have 50 yards of fabric on it. The middle roll might have been full, or possibly had just a couple yards off of it, but the roll far left has about ten yards on it. So, I got over 100 yards of cotton fabric for $30, or less than 30 cents per yard. The prints are out of style, but I’m thinking they will be fine for quilt backings. 

I wanted to wash all this fabric, but washing 50 yards at once wasn’t going to happen. When I buy quilt backings, I tend to buy 120” wide backings, because a lot of my quilts run 108-110” square. With that in mind, I am cutting all this fabric into 120” lengths, knowing that I can piece it back together if I need to, but the shorter lengths make washing all this fabric much easier. 

If anyone is near Oceanside, California, I didn’t buy all the fabric rolls they had, and if you are into garment making they had some 98 yard rolls of knits, still at $10 per roll. I believe it was the DAV thrift store, but we went to several that day. Some people may think it was excessive to buy as much fabric as I did, I think I showed great restraint. There were other rolls of cotton as well as all the garment fabric, so the fact I limited it to three rolls, was good for me. Since all of the rolls I bought have neutral backgrounds, I think they’ll do fine as quilt backs. 

Hot Mess

While some things are going great in my life, other areas are a hot mess, and it’s just that reason I am so enjoying working with strings right now.

When some quilters make string blocks, they are actually working with strips. Strips are even cuts with nice edges. I am working with strings, uneven cuts, rejects of the scrap user system than can’t be cut into any of the sizes I save. They are wonky cuts, possible leftovers from cutting strips from scraps, weird sizes and shapes that don’t fit anything. If I’m lucky it’s just a WOF cut to straighten up an edge before cutting strips from yardage.

Right now I’m working with strings from recycled fabrics, men’s shirts I’ve cut up to scrap user system sizes, and what doesn’t work for that goes into the string bucket. I’ve got quite the oddball pieces in here. Collars, cuffs, odd leftover bits that I can’t get a strip from. My personal favorite? The odd bits left from cutting out a stain! I’m not using the stained part, but around it, that’s good fabric!

I always use some type of foundation when string piecing. Most of the time, that foundation is paper. I will cover a square of paper with strings, then square it up before removing the paper. Right now, I’m covering 15 degree wedges cut from Golden Threads paper, so I can make a Christmas tree skirt. I’m also using Warm and Natural batting as a foundation for string Christmas stockings.

String blocks, stockings, wedges, anything, always start out looking like a hot mess.

 Hot mess! Look at those wonky pieces!

Hey, look, it’s a stocking and kind of cute!

Hot mess!

Two sides of a stocking, not bad!

Hot mess on the left. Use the wedge ruler to neaten things up, and hey, that could be used for something fun!

Just like these shapes made up of wonky bits, I'm hoping the areas of my life that are a hot mess will get neatened up and be a part of something good in the end. Until then, I'll make order from bits of fabric, and dream of happy endings.

Off Week

Boy, do I wish I could say I had a really productive week, and finished up all those Christmas stockings! I wish I could say that, but I can’t, because I didn’t. This has been a pretty emotionally driven week, and I didn’t get much done at all. I have gotten on a more even keel now, and I’m hoping for a productive weekend since DH works all weekend.

This is what I did work on this week. I cut out a Weed Whacker quilt when I cut out the Waterfall quilt. I had so many 2” blue strips I needed a couple big quilts to put a dent in them. I’m double sewing the corners so I get a nice pile of bonus HSTs to play with. The container on the left has the bonus HSTs, the container on the right has the units I need for the Weed Whacker quilt. I had sewed all the blue strips into pairs while I was working on the Waterfall quilt, and this week, since I was rather out of sorts, sewing on lines for knocked off corners was a good, easy thing to do. I’m not finished making units, this is about 2/3 of the units I need to make. I’ve been debating what pattern I’d like to do with the bonus HSTs, but I am still undecided. I don’t need the units for a border, because I already made a piano key border for the Weed Whacker quilt. Did I mention I had a LOT of blue 2” strips???

I tried starting the string stockings I’m making with men’s shirts, but I realized I need to press the shirt strings first. The shirt strings are so wonky and so wrinkled I just can’t deal with both issues and get a good flat stocking without pressing first. As soon as I post this, that’s what I’m heading to do, press a decent amount of shirt strings so I can string piece tomorrow with no drama. I’m really careful to not wrinkle my pre-cut strips, but I tend to just cram strings into boxes. Most of the time with quilting fabric I can get away with that, but these recycled fabrics aren’t being as forgiving, so rather than fight with them as I sew, I’ll just take the time to press them now. I’m hoping to finish the units for Weed Whacker as leaders/enders while I string piece stockings.