Erin Underwood Quilts

Got an art opening coming up in June and I need one more piece for the show – so I got started on this one that has been together in my head for quite a while.

First the grunt work – drawing and trips to Staples to blow them all up to the same size.

Then the bones of the quilt. the geese are felt, some are two or three layers thick. I’m hoping for some layered dimension when finished but not sure I’ll get the results in the end.

Its on the machine now, got a layer of batiste on top – and quilting has begun. Two threads in the needle, both sulky, one a silver and the other one is a sort of white shimmery thread, not quite metallic.

On Friday night, I ran out of the silver thread shortly after these two were stitched. Can’t find this in town on Saturday so it requires a trip to JoAnn’s, a 30 minute drive.  It’ll have to wait til Monday so meanwhile, I did this.

Cushions and pillow for the porch swing! There’s even cording on the seat cushion! Back to my roots a bit for this job but OH, what a great porch swing!

Monday came, went to JoAnn’s,  got thread and spent lots of money outfitting my daughter for her internship on the way there and back. So technically,that spool of thread cost a lot of money! But the last goose is feathered!

Now its time to fill in the background – more to come!

You know when you are told not to use canned air to clean out your machine, they really mean it!

My machine was making very loud grinding noises last month so I took it upon myself to see what’s what. I squirted oil here and there and still the noise. So I took off the bottom plate of the machine  – cause that’s where the noise was coming from, or so I thought – and look what I found! Years of thread and lint that I had blown into the bottom of the machine! It was firmly entrenched in every gear and moving mechanical thing under there.

I dilgently and carefully cleaned out the lint – I don’t recommend this for the mechanically intimidated – and put the machine back together sans on screw. It rolled away never to be seen again. Upon starting up the machine again – still grinding!

OK – this means there was something seriously wrong with the poor machine. So I took it into the shop –   something I was avoiding with a vengeance because I didn’t want to be relegated to sewing on my “other” machine for the duration of the repair visit. Luckily, I have an “in” with the service tech and he looked at my machine while I waited. Much to my embarrassment,  he called me back to his office for a diagnosis and sitting there on his repair bench beside my machine was about a 1/2 inch length of a broken needle tip and several strands of decorative thread that I hadn’t used in years!!!! Ah – hah! The source of the grinding!

Apparently I had blown (through my  consistent  use of canned air) the needle tip and the pretty threads all the way over to the flywheel side of the machine and these pesky little pieces of debris got caught up in the belt! Not exactly where I heard the grinding noise coming from but its not grinding any more and I’m not blowing air any more either! Lesson learned!