Piece and Quilt Hop Along {week 4}: Giveaway!

Piece and Quilt Hop Along {week 4}: Giveaway!

It’s Week 4 of the Piece and Quilt Hop Along. My friends HollyAnneVicki, and I are quilting along in Christa Watson’s new book Piece and Quilt with Precuts. It all started here, if you want to start at the beginning.

Dot n Dash quilt by Christa Watson at kristinesser.com

Dot ‘n’ Dash Quilt

This quilt went together so fast! If you start with jellyrolls, you already have such a head start on putting this quilt together. I started with a jellyroll of the background, and cut strips from yardage, and it was still super quick.

Dot n Dash quilt by Christa Watson at kristinesser.com

Here’s a little secret–I love nothing more that sewing fabric together. This quilt is chain piecing at its finest. And because it is scrappy, I literally just picked up the scrap nearest to me and started sewing them together. I wondered if I would regret not having a plan when it came time to sew it all together, like would I get stuck with too many of the same fabrics lining up, etc. But it worked out just fine. There are a few places that that I had to let go of my perfectionism and let two patches of the same color touch. Which is what happens with random, right? But I like a little more “controlled random”.

Dot n Dash quilt by Christa Watson at kristinesser.com

Another new-to-me technique was pressing seams open. It was a great idea for this quilt because then you didn’t have to worry about which way to press your seams to have them nest. And since it was so random–I didn’t really know how the final layout would go. I have to say–the blocks lie so flat! This little tool really helped to get them opened up before pressing. I had to set my stitch length quite a bit smaller, as I noticed that the edges of blocks would start to come apart–so there was a bit of a learning curve. You definitely need pin to get those seams to line up. But I got pretty good at getting a pin right in the seam line and had good results with it. All in all, I love how it came out.

Dot n Dash quilt by Christa Watson at kristinesser.com

The Quilting (Nightmare)

This is where our story takes a dark turn. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but this quilt is headed to Quilt Market to show off both Christa’s pattern and fabrics in the Benartex booth. So, of course, I wanted it to be perfect (sigh). I decided to quilt it pretty much the way Christa showed in the book. It looked perfect for the quilt and very doable.

My newly beloved Juki started breaking thread in a way it never had before. I did all the things. I re-threaded, I cleaned out the bobbin case, I changed the needle. It broke three needles in a row. I started wearing glasses every time I changed the needle, just in case, (I didn’t want to lose an eye over this). If it worked, it would start skipping stitches after a few minutes. This quilt has so many stops and starts in the quilting–something that of course, I was trying to minimize.

Dot n Dash quilt by Christa Watson at kristinesser.com
Skipped stitches, broken thread, stops and starts–every quilting problem you could have!

So, I drove 40 minutes to the Juki dealer. They showed me a place where I was threading it wrong (although it had worked fine the way I had it threaded all summer), and of course, it behaved itself at the dealer, so I took it back home. You know how this goes, right? It started acting up as soon as I got home. I spent hours trying to get it to work. Then I finally pulled the old Babylock out of the closet.

Dot n Dash quilt by Christa Watson at kristinesser.com

It’s amazing how you get used to a new machine! The Bablylock felt so different and I had become so used to having all that extra harp space on the Juki. But, I pushed on. I was quickly reminded of why I wanted the Juki in the first place. The free motion tension on the Babylock is not great. And I wanted the quilting to be great! So I did all the things. Changed the needle. Opened it up to clean out the bobbin area, etc. Then I put it all back together and I couldn’t get the bobbin thread up. A tangled mess!  I got up and ran it to the dealer. Turns out the bobbin hook was broken. Nooooo! Am I cursed or what?!

At this point, I am up against a deadline and I start looking for Plan B. Luckily, my friend Vicki tells me that I can send it to her and she will finish it (God bless you Vicki!). This plan is looking pretty good about now. But, I get up early on Saturday morning and drive the 40 minutes back to the Juki dealer. They understand my plight at this point and the technician sits down with it then and there to figure it out. I won’t bore you with the details–but it had something to do with the needle threader, which resulted in the timing being off.  He fixed it right there. The threader will not be replaced for a couple of weeks–but in the meantime I have a working sewing machine!!

Free motion machine quilting kristinesser.com

I finished up the wavy line motif that I had been struggling with before (because of the machine–the motif is fun!) and then moved onto some simple zig-zags. It was then that I felt my love for machine quilting return. It felt so good to get back in the zone.

Crazy eight machine quilting kristinesser.com

After that nice warm-up, I got up the nerve to start on some crazy eights.  They are so fun and fast! Definitely not perfect, but they keep getting better and the they give the quilt a beautiful texture.

Free motion machine quilting kristinesser.com

The Giveaway!

Whew! If you made it this far, you deserve a giveaway! Martingale has generously provided each of the Blog Hoppers a copy of the book to giveaway, plus we are each throwing in some free Modern Marks fabric as well! So, make sure you also visit Vicki and HollyAnne.

Here are the details for my giveaway:  There will be two winners . One winner will receive one copy of Piece and Quilt with Precuts by Christa Watson. If the winner resides in the United States or Canada, they will have their choice of a physical or digital copy of the book. If they reside outside the US and Canada, the winner will receive a digital copy.

The second winner will receive a “jellyroll” of Modern Marks fabrics. This is one 2.5″ strip from each one of Christa’s (31) beautiful fabrics! (U.S. only due to shipping costs)

You can enter below anytime between October 9-20, 2017.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Related Posts

Dot ‘n Dash Quilt with Modern Marks Fabric

Dot ‘n Dash Quilt with Modern Marks Fabric

(This post  contains affiliate links. This means that if you purchase through this link, I will get a tiny commission, at no additional charge to you. Rest assured, I only link to products that I love!  My disclosure policy can be found here.) Welcome to my […]

How to Break Up a Quilt into Small Sections for Quilting

How to Break Up a Quilt into Small Sections for Quilting

Welcome back to the penultimate post on the Machine Quilting Blog Hop!   Next week we are wrapping this series up with an awesome giveaway! Martingale has generously provided each of the blog hoppers ( HollyAnne, Vicki, Jen, and me)  a copy of  The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting to […]