Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen Day 6 - FMQ practice

When the chemist was little she desperately wanted to do ballet. Gradually she amassed the necessary equipment. She had the tutu, the leotard, the shoes, the tights. She lacked the hair, but that is another story! You never would tell from her long blond locks today, but she was a baldie for ages, poor child. She also had the imagination. You could tell that in her head the spotlight was on, while she swanned gracefully about the stage. Then she went to her first lesson.

What she learned was that putting on all the paraphernalia didn't mean she could do ballet. Not even close. She gave up almost immediately. Which was ironic, since she had one of those books with a cassette tape to read along with. The story was about a ballerina. It had a very unsubtle message that one day the lead ballerina will definitely break her leg at the critical moment, and because you have practiced diligently, you will be chosen to replace her in the end of term concert. We used to do a lot of very long car journeys to visit grandparents, and this story was a favorite. At one point I could recite it in my sleep. To this day we still quote Mrs. Kaye, the ballet teacher, who was always telling people to "Practice, practice, practice!"

Sadly, Mrs. Kaye was right. Good teachers and good equipment definitely make FMQ easier, but I find that to get better, I need to practice. I keep intending to have a stack of quilt sandwiches next to the machine and to do a little FMQ every day. Alas, I share a lot of genes with the chemist, and sometimes I prefer the scenes in my head where all my stitches are perfect, to the reality at my fingertips. In the real world I lose concentration, get tired, and sometimes need a lot more practice to get the designs on my fabric to bear any resemblance to the designs in my head!

Nice free-flowing stitches on the practice sample

After all the practice samples I had been working on, I was, frankly, getting just a little smug. I was fairly happy with the stitches I was making. So I moved on to an actual pieced top. And froze. My shoulders got stiff, my hands were moving more jerkily, I was forgetting to breathe. Oh the stress! Needless to say, the stitches accurately reflected all that loss of relaxation.

Much tighter and stiffer stitches - this is for real, eeeek!

More practice I guess...Right, Mrs. Kaye?

Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen Day 4 - FMQ sewing machine vs HQSS

When it comes to FMQ I would like to give a shout out to Leah Day. I learned to FMQ by watching her videos and taking Craftsy classes with her. She has a really great teaching style, and her designs are free on her website, along with "how to stitch" videos.

FMQ done on Husqvarna Emerald - Leah Day lollipop tree pattern

When I started free motion quilting I upgraded my Singer, bought a machine with feed dogs, read a book, and expected to learn how to do it fairly easily. How hard could it be? Well, hardish it turned out. Thread "bird nested" or "eyelashed", stitches were really hard to control, and I was either racing along at 80 miles an hour, or negotiating a tricky turn like an elderly chicken crossing a busy highway. My Husqvara also gave me endless issues with the free motion feet. Their design is a bit silly and the top of the foot would get a stress break really easily. At $50 a foot this was a big deal, and the dealer just shrugged and sold me a new one.

The one on the left works better than the one on the right!!

 Once I'd found Leah's site, I stopped buying feet and wound an elastic band around the top of the broken foot and it worked better than before. I also invested in a Supreme Slider, and that was a game changer. The silicone surface gave me sufficient "glide" that I finally began to feel I might be able to master this FMQ thing. I started using Bobbin Genies too, and they seemed to help with bird's nesting on the back. I never got to terms with gloves though. I have 2 different brands, and frankly, I can't quilt with either of them. I need to feel the fabric.

Then I bought a Bernina and, partly because it is such a great machine, and partly because I had been practicing, FMQ seemed to have a lot less thread issues etc. but I was still using the Supreme Slider. Actually it was my third, because I ripped one, and sewed through another one. When they say wash after each use, that is advice worth taking... I still struggled with visibility though. I always felt I was craning my neck to see what the heck I was doing.

FMQ done on Bernina 350 PE

And now I have the Sweet Sixteen. I know it's early days but I do feel a little as though I'd died and gone to heaven. No feed dogs for the up/down controversy. No peering around the machine to see my work area, no wondering how to get more light where I'm working. No need for a Supreme Slider, Bobbin Genie etc.

Now the only thing I have to get my head around is that all the controls are on the control panel. I do still find myself looking for the lever to engage the machine, and the hand wheel to drop the needle into the fabric! And I wish there was a thread snipper like on my Bernina.

Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen Day 3

So...at the lesson last night I found out that I had still managed to mess up the threading! I had gone through the viewing hole for the needle instead of the thread hole in front of the needle. I thought it looked weird... Which brings me to another point when considering a new machine: to buy online or from a local dealer. I did think about buying online, but after sales service is important to me, not least because I am clearly not that good at reading directions (ahem). Face to face trouble shooting is really important to me, and that's why I went with a local dealer.

Once I had rethreaded the machine for the third time, I got even better stitches. Still some pull back of top thread on the back of the work, but much, much better than yesterday's sample. What do they say about the problem with the machine generally being about 12 inches in front of the machine??

The lady who did my lesson attributed the front thread on the back on yesterday's sample to a tension issue. I looked at the tension on the dealer's machine and theirs is set to 175!!! Apparently each machine has its own internal consistency though. When I loosened my tension to 400, the bobbin thread came through the front, so I'm going to keep mine in the 400s for Isacord. 

I'm wondering if the thread pull through isn't due to stitch speed and density too. From the samples above you can see that the most thread pull though came in the heaviest stitching, and on the curves of other shapes. Where the stitches were most consistent, the stippling, there is no pull through, and on the little swirls on a stick, a stitch I am very familiar with, there is very little too. 

Testing tension on the same pattern

 Somewhere between 435/440 seems to give me nice consistent stitches. Still a little green showing on the top of the circle where the most thread build up is.

 And the more I practice the easier it gets - who knew?? 

When I stitched echo lines like this on my Bernina, I always got longer stitches going away from me. The greater visibility on the Sweet Sixteen makes it much easier to sew back and forth, not turning and always going in the same direction, and I can't really tell which lines were sewn coming towards me and which going away from me. I did find the needle and thread distracting when sewing away from me, they go so jolly fast! I think that's something that won't bother me for long though. 

So day 3 and still a fan. Now to find some patterns to use on a project.