Journal Notes

This will be my first project on my new Innova longarm. I didn’t want to start with something I’d spent a lot of time piecing so I decided to make something out of this 19 year old panel that came in a scrap bag I purchased. The fabric was out of square and the one row of blocks was cut short of its border so I cut out all the blocks and squared them up. I didn’t like the arrangement of the blocks so I was able to change that too. Now I’m making sashing for them, utilizing part of what was on the panel and some Kona Amethyst. I made a skinny pink border to get the middle to the right size so that I could do a checkerboard border. I went through my bag of 2 1/2” squares and picked out squares that matched colors in the panel and laid them out in a checkerboard pattern and didn’t like it. Because all the blocks have the same exact colors it looked weird to have a scrappy border. I managed to find 2 fabrics that went with the quilt that were big enough to cut 64 squares each from. I should have strip pieced these but wasn’t thinking and cut all the squares first. I messed up on my math for the first border and had to trim it to make it fit the checkerboard. Wasted some fabric but I like how it came out. Quilting this was very frustrating. I struggled with the tension on the Innova (Rita) all the way through. Steve and I spent an evening following a video showing how to disassemble and adjust the tension assembly. I understand it better now but it is still tricky. I used sheets for the backing, a pink one and a lavender. The lavender was also used for the outer border. That one must be more tightly woven because I seemed to have more issues where I was stitching on that part of the backing. I’ve ordered some ballpoint needles and will try those next time I use a sheet backing. Hopefully it will help. I had to rip one block out and requilt it because it was so bad. The holes left look like the sharp needle may have cut the fabric. Yikes! I seem to have had good tension everywhere I used rulers but it messed up where I did freehand movement, especially where I outlined the figures in the panel blocks. Maybe as my movements get smoother my tension will be better. I made myself do freehand circles in the purple sashing even though I have a ruler that would have made them perfect. I wanted to work on developing the muscle control I need to move my bigger, heavier machine. They look ok from a galloping horse. I need lots more practice! I have no one to give this to yet. It won’t get washed till I have a recipient name so I can make a label for it. Just waiting for someone to have a baby girl.