Quilts from Canaan

Quilting Art Virtual Studio's Event

I am going to participate in the Quilting Arts studio event on October 3rd. Visit my blog on this date to see my studio space!

5 Lessons Learned from a Quilting Disaster

I started hand quilting a cross-hatch pattern in the white background in my Armenian bird of paradise quilt, and marked the lines with a vanishing purple marker. After quilting a small area, I went to check something in the book "That Perfect Stitch" by Roxanne McElroy, which I borrowed last week. While leafing through the book I got to the pages about marking the top and there the author graded the different marking tools and gave the vanishing markers 1-2 out of 10. I was intrigued and checked why, only to find out that these markers have very harsh chemicals that can cause the fabric to disintegrate in a span of a couple of years. I became frantic and went to wash the place where I marked. To my horror the hand-dyed fabrics in the applique motifs started bleeding and stained the white background in yellow, green, red and blue… I was totally stressed out and drove to the nearest open shop to look for the Woolite “dye-magnet” sheets of which I have heard but never used, in the meantime I immersed the whole quilt in water so that the dye doesn’t “set”. I found the sheets, came back and threw the quilt into the washing machine with some syntrapol and a dye-magnet sheet. The quilt was saved – there are not stains on the white fabric. I think it discolored a bit and is now more cream than white, but I it doesn’t ruin the quilt. The only remaining problem is that the batting has shrunk and since the quilt is not fully quilted yet, it will have quilting uniformity problems. I will have to undo the background quilting that I have done and start the crosshatching again, which is a small price to pay for the whole blunder.

Lessons Learned

1. Prewash hand-dyed fabrics until they are clean, even if you don't think you will ever wash your quilt - you might unexpectedly have to wash the quilt or it might inadvertently get wet.
2. Never, ever use vanishing blue or purple markers on a quilt that you don't intend to wash thoroughly.
3. If you have to wash a quilt before it's finished, it's better to finish quilting it before washing - otherwise you might encounter quilting uniformity problems.
4. Always keep Woolite "dye-magnet" sheets at home.
5. Always drop a Woolite "dye-magnet" sheet with your quilt when washing it, even if you think that all the fabrics are stable. One of the fabrics is sure to bleed if you have a white patch in your quilt.

The Hunt for a Sewing Machine - a Personal Comparison

I currently have a Janome 6500. I've been having some problems with the tension setting of this machine, especially when satin stitching and free motion quilting. These problems, combined with the fact that I simply cannot afford to be stuck without a sewing machine when my machine is being fixed or tuned (which was most of last month), made me decide that I need to buy an additional sewing machine.

The following are my personal observations, based on my personal needs, and shouldn't be taken as anything other than that.

First I defined my needs:

1. A sewing machine that will last at least 10 years without deteriorating in performance.
2. A high quality of satin stitch and buttonhole stitch. My personal preference is for a flat satin stitch and it is particularly important for me that the edges of the stitch on both sides are perfectly straight.
3. A high quality of free motion quilting. I specifically prefer when the free motion quilting with rounded lines doesn't cause the surface to pucker, i.e. the quilted surface remains relatively flat.
4. Uniform feeding while piecing.
5. Uniform feeding with walking foot.
6. Knee lifter and automatic thread cutter.
7. A good quality 1/4 inch foot for piecing.
8. The ability to start/stop sewing without a pedal.

I decided which machines I want to test. I immediately removed from my list the Bernina Artista and Aurora because they are outside my budget. I couldn't find a Pfaff GrandQuilter for testing, so it was eliminated from the comparison.

After preparing my test materials (quilt sandwiches, applique, and fabric strips), I set out to test the machines. This was not a scientific comparison, if I had more time, I probably would have done a better job.

(*) The Bernina 220 that I tested is a used machine and wasn't well regulated. I tested it and not the 230 or 240, simply because it was there and because I was not interested in the additional features the higher end models had to offer.

(**) The Bernina 1530 that I tested is 17 years old and well used. This model is not being manufactured anymore and is hard to find even as a used machine.

Brand	Janome 6600	Husqvarna Sapphire	Elna Q6600	Bernina 220 (*)	Bernina 1530 (**)
Price	8,500 NIS	7,500 NIS	5,500 NIS	5,500 NIS	N/A
Opening	Wide	Wide	Narrow	Narrow	Narrow
Quality of satin stitch	OK	Good	Good	Good	Excellent
Hand start/stop	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Thread Cutter	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Basic Quilting Accessories	Included	~500 NIS	Included	~500 NIS	~500 NIS

General Observations

1. All the machines have an abundance of embroidery stitches and alphabets. As I didn't care for this feature, I didn't pay attention to the exact number of stitches.
2. All the machines have electronic speed control.
3. All the machines have a very nice variety of buttonhole stitches and they perform these stitches beautifully.
4. The weight of all these machines is 10-12 kg. They are not appropriate for schlepping around to workshops. The Husqvarna and Elna seem a bit lighter than the other ones.
5. All the machines performed more or less the same in terms of uniform feeding of fabric while piecing long strips without using pins. I didn't test the Accufeed of Janome 6600 with a 1/4 foot, so I can't give an opinion on this subject.
6. All the machines, except the Elna 6600. performed well with the walking foot. The Elna didn't feed well and I had some puckering over a distance of 10 inches.
7. All the machines, except the Janome 6600, did nice and flat free motion meandering. The Janome 6600, like my 6500, tends to cause puckering of the fabric with dense quilting. The top tension is hard to adjust properly and there is an eye-lash effect on the bottom. I've checked the Janome forum and found that this complaint was repeated by several customers.
8. All the machines, except the Husqvarna, have a knee lifter. The Husqvarna has an automatic foot lifter instead, that lifts the foot every time you stop sewing. I found this feature disconcerting, when I am piecing long strips, since I stop once in a while to readjust my hands, and every time I did it - the foot was raised. Eventually I had to disable this feature, but then I had no way to raise the foot without getting my hands off the sewing.
9. 1/4 inch foot - my personal preference is for the foot of the Janome. It has a nice structure that helps accuracy. Husqvarna has the least useful foot, but I have seen on the internet another version of this foot that is made of clear plastic. I have a hunch that the plastic foot might be much better.

Personal Preferences

1. The machine I liked best was the Bernina 1530. It did lack some features that where important, such as the size of the opening, the automatic thread cutter and the ability to start/stop sewing without the pedal, but these were outweighed by the quality of sewing. The walking foot is excellent, the satin stitch is great, and the free motion quilting is a dream. I never had such an experience of smooth quilting as with this machine. It also has a neat feature of raising and lowering the needle by pressing on the pedal with the heel of the foot.
2. The Husqvarna is a great machine, and I would have bought it if it had the knee lifter instead of the automatic foot raising feature. I did find it aggravating that a machine that is designed for quilters and sold as such, does not include all the feet needed by quilters.
3. The Bernina 220 seems like a good machine and is well priced, but it is not built in Switzerland anymore and I don't know if it would last like the older models that were made in Switzerland.
4. The Elna is a very nice machine, especially for the price. The walking foot, however, is a disadvantage.
5. The Janome 6600 is basically a sturdy, good machine with a fantastic set of features. For me, the quality of the satin stitch and the free motion quilting created a problem.