Completed Quilt Top, New Blocks from Old Units, and a Longarm Disaster!

I just finished the grandbaby quilt top less than an hour ago.

I'm really happy with the quilt top, I think I like my improvised border better than the original, and it all went together like a breeze! I had to purchase a minky backing for it, because that's what DS the Younger and DDIL wanted, and I don't keep minky in stash. I bought that back in December, so I've still only purchased one piece of fabric in 2020. I just had to run around like a fiend looking for the backing, because I've moved so much in the last six weeks, I wasn't sure where I put it! I found it though, and I'll see about basting it tomorrow. 

I've been using some bonus HST's to make Lady of the Lake blocks.

See, thousands of bonus HST's, well over 2,000 here!

I cut the large center HST at a size so I could use 20 bonus HST's in every Lady of the Lake block. Sometimes I like to keep one block right in front of me, so I keep the orientation of the HST's correct. A 3M hook on my shelf and a bulldog clip on the block work nicely for that. 

I stuck a few blocks up on the design wall. I don't want to deal with all those seams coming together, so I think I will use a straight setting with sashing and cornerstones. I've got just over 20 blocks made now, and I sorted the black, purple, and green HST's for over 80 more blocks. Once I get some of those sewn up, I'll start sorting the blue HST's. Most fabrics I don't have 20 HST's of the same fabric, so I'm just sorting into similar shades. The large HST's don't always match either, I was just using up some leftover jewel toned fabrics I've already used in several quilts. Besides the silver Kona background on all the HST's, this is really just a quilt to use up a bunch of leftovers, whether they be leftover fabrics I use in the large HST's, or leftover bonus HST's. I'm thinking I will end up with at least a queen sized quilt. I'm in no hurry to get this quilt done, I'll likely finish the blocks and set them aside for a while. 

Are you ready for my longarm disaster story? I decided to start quilting another UFO, figuring I could finish quilting it before I was finished piecing the baby quilt. I was quilting away, when I had a thread break. No big deal, right? Thread breaks happen. Well......it was a really big deal. The broken thread had wrapped all the way around the bobbin race, and the machine was completely stuck with the needle all the way down! I googled it and saw that sometimes you can run the handwheel backwards and get it loose. Tried that, nope! I couldn't get the thread out, and my quilt was stuck on there, since the needle was all the way down. 

My longarm weighs 45 pounds, and the idea of carrying it with my quilt attached to be serviced was more than I could handle. I was determined to get the quilt out. I used a set of wire cutters, and cut the needle in half. Since the needle bar was stuck all the way down, I still couldn't maneuver the needle out. I wiggled the bobbin out eventually, the bottom half the needle fell out, and by pushing the top half through the quilt, I got the quilt loose. I haven't looked to see if pushing the needle through the quilt damaged the quilt. I'm hoping the larger hole will fix itself in the wash. That's a problem for another day. 

I wanted to try to get the needle out, and after cutting a machine needle in half, I was feeling pretty brave. You can't break what's already broken, right? That's always been my motto, and I knew as long as I didn't lose any parts, worse case scenario was still taking it in to be serviced. I moved the machine and competely removed the bobbin assembly. I still couldn't get the thread out, the bobbin wouldn't spin in the race at all. DH had to go pick up our vacuum from a sew and vac place anyway, so I had him take the bobbin assembly with him and for $10 the guy disassembled and reassembled the bobbin assembly removing the offending thread. I hadn't been able to get those screws to budge at all, otherwise I would have done that myself. 

So today I put the machine mostly back together. I've watched a couple YouTube videos about setting the timing, and so far it's beyond me. I'll try a couple more times tomorrow (I can only handle so much frustration in one day). If I can't figure it out, I'll have DH bring it in to be serviced. 

Looks like I'll be quilting the baby quilt on my Bernina, which is fine, except for the fact that the maintenance indicator symbol came on yesterday! The Bernina is sewing just fine, it just goes on every so many stitches. Right now my plan is to quilt the baby quilt and make some burp rags on the Bernina for the new grandbaby. Once those are done, I'll bring the Bernina and likely the longam in for servicing. While I'm without those, I can try to get caught up on some of the cutting I need to do, as well as get some sewing time in on my vintage machines. I do most of my piecing on vintage machines anyway, it's just both the machines I actually quilt on will be at the shop at the same time, which kind of stinks. It's things like this that make me very thankful I have multiple machines!