Saturday, March 16, 2013

My Quilting Day so Far

My plan for National/International/Worldwide Quilting Day is to begin the quilting on my tea towel challenges quilt, which was my pick for a Lovely Finish in March.

Oiling the machineOne of the things I challenged myself to do on this project was to quilt it on my Singer 301.

I started my day by making myself a nice big latté and enjoying it while giving my machine some TLC.  Did you know the original owners manual for the 301 recommends,
If the machine is used continuously, it should be oiled daily.
Auditioning ThreadsAnother of my personal challenges for this quilt was to use only fabric and thread from my stash. Next, I auditioned a selection of threads I thought I'd use.

I was confident that the Singer would be happy with the cotton King Tut; less so about the shiny rayon threads from Isacord, Sulky and Mettler that I wanted to use to add some shine to the tea towel at the center of my quilt.


Testing with Rayon threadWhile I waited for my oatmeal to cook (in the rice cooker–the easiest way I know to make steel cut oats), I tested with a couple of the fine threads on some scraps and batting trimmed from another project.

After a breakfast break, I was good to go.

I started by outlining some of the design elements of the tea towel.  I could be outlining those little leaves for a while ...


Outlining the Tea Towel Design Elements

I'm joining SewCalGal's Virtual Sew-cial today and linking to the Block Lotto Weekend Update. This is also my mid-month check-in post for the Year of Lovely Finishes. 

12 comments:

Ray and Jeanne said...

Happy Quilting Day! I love your colors! This is going to be really pretty! I enjoyed reading about you - I used to balance my hi-tech career with my slow-tech quilting. In those days I only hand-quilted. Enjoy the weekend! ~Jeanne

Angie in SoCal said...

I was trying to figure out what to post for SewCalGal's linky and then I read yours. Sounds just right! Lovely quilt you are working on. Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

Beautiful! Hey, you're in Santa Fe - I'm in Albuquerque. Cool! Enjoy your quilting today!

-Green

Quilting Babcia said...

Looking lovely! I began my FMQ adventure with a Singer 301A, then quickly switched to an even older Singer 15-91, which is a fantastic machine for FMQ with the advantage of much larger bobbin capacity. The 301s are wonderful for smaller projects like your tea towel challenge. Have fun quilting today!

Barb and Sharon said...

I have 2 301's but I'm afraid to free motion quilt on them. I was told at my LQS not to lower the feed dogs on them because they break. Any advice?
Barb@Witsend

Joanna said...

I love the colors on your tea towel quilt. The leaves look so pretty.

Nita said...

Very pretty! How do you make steel cut oatmeal in the rice cooker? I make mine over night in a crock pot.

Paulette said...

I love that you're quilting this on your 301. I have a 301 too, but I've not figured out free-motion quilting on it yet. Curious as to the foot you're using. Looking forward to seeing how your towel turns out. I worked on mine today too but have hit a wall as to the design direction.

Susan @ Blackberry Creek said...

I love the colors too. Would you please tell me how to ccok steel cut oats in your rice cooker? I have a Pampered Shelf rice cooker that I love for cooking rice. I hope it will work for the oats. I tried a crock pot technique that I read about, and my oats were a disaster.

SewCalGal said...

I'm happy to have you join the virtual sew-cial to celebrate International Quilting Day. Love all your projects. Totally amazed with the towel with leaves and spectacular butterflies! Thanks for all the great tips and reminder to oil our machines daily.

SewCalGal
www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

Pokey said...

Sophie, you are the best encourager! The tea towel quilt will be a winner.

Ha, funny how many comments on steel cut oats, huh? I just cook them for 45 minutes, but we eat them chewy, nutty...I wonder if others would consider them not quite done? But, I've never had them any other way ~
:-}pokey

Anonymous said...

What a great idea to do it on the 301. I never read that in my book! I'll have to try to remember it! It's going to get a lot more use in a year or so when I have my quilting room in the big room downstairs.

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