Thread breakage and finishes

I have been having a terrible time with my Juki on the quilting frame. The thread is breaking every 4-12 inches or so. I've tried all different brands of thread, I've adjusted tension, replaced needles, no matter what I've done the problem has just gotten worse. I put a call out to an online Juki group, and they gave me a few ideas to try. The problem is I had two quilts that needed to be finished quickly, and I just didn't have the time to fix the problem before doing the quilts. I decided to quilt the two quilts on my Bernina, and I'm glad I did. These are the first quilts I've quilted on my Bernina, in the cabinet, with the custom insert. What a difference as compared to quilting on a DSM on a table! I pulled the cabinet away from the wall so the quilt could drape over the edge instead of bunching up against the wall. I didn't have a problem with the quilt pulling too much, even though I've been told to keep the quilt level. At any rate, I quilted one quilt yesterday, just stitching-in-the-ditch, and one today, with my first attempt at crosshatching.

I don't know if you can see it, you might have to click on the photo to make it bigger, but this is the back of my cross-hatched quilt. I can't show the front until it's gifted. I really enjoyed doing the crosshatching, I found it simple, and pretty quick. I only drew two lines on the quilt, one slanting left to right, and one left to right. I aligned the 60 degree marking along the edge of the quilt so my lines would make nice diamond shapes. I screwed the quilt guide onto my walking foot and used that to do all the other lines. As long as I kept the guide on my previous line, the quilting was even. I am going to do this again, it was fun, and no machine issues with the Bernina!

DD#2 and I went to Joanns today. It is amazing how much faster a trip there is when I'm on no-buy and am not looking at fabric or getting it cut! I did pick up some Fons and Porter gloves to help guide the quilt as I was quilting. The gloves were on sale, and I had an extra 10% off coupon, so they were just over $2. I thought they were well worth the money, and the quilting was much easier with them.

I have both of those quilts bound, one is already washed and dried, and the other is in the washer now. I want any shrinking to be done on my watch, before they are gifted.

I am also getting into Christmas mode. I got these done a couple of weeks ago, but forgot to mention them. I have plastic canvas ornaments with everyone's names on them. Since we got two new family members this year, I needed to get these made before the tree goes up. Javier is my new son-in-law (married to DD#3), and Zachary is my grandson, (son of DD#1).