Well, maybe it's not so bad. All I have to do is join Week 2 and Week 5 pieces. (And make most of the Week 5 pieces, and a few more Week 2 pieces.) Love those flying geese.
"Ok, so this looks pretty easy," she said to herself optimistically. There is NO CUTTING, and just ONE easy seam. So, why was it so hard? Why did I have so many do-overs?
Earlier in the day I had set up my machine differently so I could work on a free-motion quilting project. I set it up with the needle plate that came with the machine. This plate allows zig-zag sewing. I didn't really think I'd need it, but as long as I was in there cleaning lint out of the bobbin area, it was a simple thing to switch to the zig-zag plate. I didn't realize I'd be returning to "On Ringo Lake" so soon.
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| The zig-zag plate |
I was too lazy to go back to the special needle-plate-for-straight-sewing that I use for piecing. I have always had problems with the zig-zag plate when working with small quilt pieces. The fabric tends to get sucked down into the larger needle hole. Guess I thought that problem had magically disappeared. Silly me. After I chain-pieced about 20 sets of flying geese I was forced to admit that I needed to go back to my more reliable needle plate.
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| The special plate for quilting |
By the way, this is a problem I have never seen mentioned anywhere. When I first encountered it, I called the sewing machine store and someone there suggested that I try the special needle plate. I did and it made a big difference.
I also had problems with the "bump" where the point of the brown triangle touches the seam.
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| The "bump" - Does it have a technical name? |
And there seemed to be a little slipping at the beginning and end of each seam, as with Part 6. I pinned and tried to be really careful and watched out for the bump but I had a significant number of do-overs. It turned out to be very slow going. Not a sprint. Not even close.
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| From these . . . |
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| . . . to these |
- Don't take the lazy route. Just change the needle plate already.
- Sometimes you can get great advice at the sewing machine store.
- Flying Geese are hard to make and once made, they're hard to work with. But they look cool.
Your geese are looking nice, anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe needle plate problem is well known to me! It is part of why I treadled my mystery quilt, using a machine that only does straight stitch, so just has the one small needle hole. Although there was a single-hole plate made that will fit my regular machine, there doesn't seem to be one available to buy now anywhere in the world.