Threads I’ve used in my Sweet Sixteen

13 12 2012

Someone on the Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen Yahoo! Group (HQ_Sit_down_model) asked about thread recommendations. Here’s my response in case it helps anyone else.

My experience with my Sweet Sixteen (remember the tension is fully adjustable, and needle size affects breakages too):

  • Superior King Tut – Can get a bit linty/fluffy, especially if you’re going fast. Rarely breaks.
  • Superior Rainbows – Shreds/breaks occasionally; no fluff.
  • Isacord 40 wt polyester – I LOVE this thread in my S16 – it goes through the machine like a hot knife through butter. Never breaks or shreds and no fluff and looks good on the quilt. Big colour range too.
  • Fil-Tec Glide – Similar to Isacord
  • Fil-Tec Harmony – similar to King Tut as it’s also a cotton; can be very fluffy/linty especially when you’re going fast so clean out the bobbin area and the tension disks often.
  • Madeira Rayon – shreds/breaks occasionally; I only ever thread this through no more than two top holes (sometimes only one) otherwise it breaks more often. No fluff.
  • Robison-Anton rayon – as for Madeira Rayon
  • Floriani (embroidery thread?) – as for Madeira Rayon; not sure if this is a rayon or polyester – it’s definitely not cotton.

For bobbin thread, I tend to use lightweight threads, such as Wonderfil’s Deco-Bob (80 wt) or Invisifil (100 wt), or Bobbinfil (70 wt). Update: ALso Fil-Tec Magna Glide Classic pre-wound bobbins (60 wt) — love those!! I have used normal 40 wt thread in the bobbin, but I hate having to change bobbins so often with that 😉 On one lap quilt, I used King Tut in the bobbin and the top – I had more than 10 bobbin changes (I think it was about 12) for that quilt, whereas when I use Deco-Bob or Bobbinfil, I can often get a lap quilt done with just two bobbin changes. And with Invisifil, even fewer (though I think Invisifil is a little thin for a quilt that’s going to be used a lot – it’s good for art quilts, though).

Remember, this is MY experience with MY machine. Your experience with these threads differ. Always test on a scrap sandwich and adjust tension and needle size if you can’t seem to work with the thread.

See also:

threads_catalog02


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Categories : Quilts and fabric stuff, Tutorials

Thunder, lightning, very very frightening

12 12 2012

We’ve copped a bit of a beating overnight — lots of lightning and thunder and now quite a bit of rain. Fortunately the wind is not fierce — yet. It’s meant to pick up later this morning.

Here’s a satellite image of our area (we’re near Bunbury) about 15 minutes ago — the pinks, blues and purples are the lightning strikes:

satellite_20121212

And the radar also about 15 mins ago — light green is lighter rain; yellow is heavy rain:

radar_20121212

And 11 hours later… Nothing much has changed. The weather system seems to be just going around and around in the one spot and not moving out to sea or inland as it normally does. Are we in some sort of 12/12/12/ vortex? 😉 Here are the satellite and radar pictures from about 4:30 pm the same day:

satellite_20121212_02

radar_20121212_02

However, the wind has picked up a bit and a LOT of rain has been dumped on the region. For example, Harvey has had more than 100 mm of rain, Bunbury close to 50 mm (now over 100 mm), and Myalup some 80 mm. All these places are within 30 km of where I live, so we’ve likely received between 50 and 80 mm of rain — that’s two to three inches in the old money 😉 And it’s December — we rarely get rain in December, so to get massive amounts of it is very unusual. In fact, it’s very unusual to get that sort of rainfall even in the middle of winter, which is when most of our annual rain falls.

Update 13 December 2012: Just to show how much rain we’ve had in the past two days, here’s a summary of our recent days and annual averages (notice too, the temperature drop!):

rain_much

I took the photos below on December 12 (I think) in a break in the rain. You can see how heavily laden the sky is, but what I really liked was the line of bright white clouds trying to creep in 😉

rain_storm_20121212_02

rain_storm_20121212_01


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Categories : Life stuff

2012 FMQ Challenge: December

2 12 2012

The last free motion quilting challenge for 2012 (ever?) was announced today. It was another by Patsy Thompson, and this time she focused on various treatments for borders — narrow and wide and all sizes in between. I had some spare time today, so I got to and did it!

Here’s my piece (click the photo to view it larger — it looks MUCH better larger). Unfortunately, reds, oranges, and yellows don’t photograph well on my camera. The fabric is a deep/dark maroon and I used a bright fluoro yellow on the inner border, a fluoro orange for the next one, followed by a fluoro lime green, and a variegated King Tut thread that combines yellow, green, and purple (‘Passionfruit’, colour #931) in the outer border. I wanted the stitching to stand out 😉

Dec_2012_finished

I enjoyed doing this one — thanks for your excellent instructions, Patsy — though I wasn’t happy with the inner loops (especially when I practised them going back the other way to make ovals — they looked really horrible!). I quite liked the shell variation (the lime green one on this piece) and intend practising that one some more. I did the feathers without a curved ruler — I just used the base of a thread spool to mark the curves 😉

So that’s it. The 2012 FMQ Challenge is over. The last step is to post a summary, which I’ll do in the next few days. Meantime, I’d like to thank SewCalGal for all her efforts in making this happen, the 2000 or so other quilters worldwide who participated, and the sponsors who donated prizes. I’ve had fun and I know I’ve improved my FMQ skills and increased my confidence. I tried some things outside my comfort zone that I enjoyed, and others that I didn’t — but it was all about expanding my knowledge and skills and if there’s a technique I’ll never use again, at least I’ll know why.


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Categories : Quilts and fabric stuff

Oiling the bobbin area on the Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen

2 12 2012

I couldn’t find any videos on where to place the SINGLE drop of oil when oiling the bobbin area on the HQ Sweet 16, so I decided to take some photos to share.

Firstly, HQ recommend you clean and oil the bobbin area after every two bobbins, but I do it after every bobbin change as I tend to use 80 wt bobbin thread, so I stitch for a much longer time with a single bobbin than if I was using 40 wt thread.

I also only put ONE drop of oil in the bobbin area, then I stitch on my scrap sandwich to make sure the tension is OK and to get rid of any oil residue that may occur (it rarely does, but sometimes I’ll get a patch of oil for about 10 stitches on my scrap sandwich).

  1. Remove the bobbin case and bobbin from the bobbin area.
  2. Use the brush to brush out any fluff, lint, etc. from the bobbin area and from the bobbin case.
  3. Pull the nozzle end of the oil bottle to extend the nozzle fully.
    Oil bottle as stored

    Oil bottle as stored

    Oil bottle with nozzle fully extended

    Oil bottle with nozzle fully extended

  4. Remove the nozzle cap and carefully place it where you won’t lose it.
  5. Squat down (or bend or kneel) and look under the table at the bobbin area. (Easier alternative: Unscrew and remove the needle plate and go in from the top.)
  6. Place the nozzle at about 7 o’clock on the first groove of the bobbin area.

    Squeeze ONE drop of oil at the 8 o'clock position

    Squeeze ONE drop of oil at the 7 o’clock position

  7. Squeeze gently so that only ONE drop of oil goes into that area.
  8. Put the cap back on the nozzle and push the extended nozzle back into the oil bottle. (See the update for Feb 2020, below, for alternatives)
  9. Replace the bobbin in the bobbin case (remember, the thread goes over the top of the bobbin and hangs to the right as you place the bobbin into the open side of the bobbin case).
  10. Test and adjust the bobbin tension, as required.
  11. Gently push the bobbin case into the bobbin area until you hear it click in place.
  12. Do some stitching on your scrap sandwich to test the tension and to get rid of any excess oil (there shouldn’t be much).
  13. Start quilting!

See also this 6-minute video from Jamie Wallen on oiling the bobbin area of a long-arm quilting machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNH06ILNPpU

Update Feb 2020: Helen Godden recently did a Handi Tip video for Handi Quilter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCfCMU1bRDQ) where she advises to leave the tip extended, keep the bottle in a cup so it doesn’t tip over, and to get a new bottle of oil when the oil becomes yellow. As you can see in my photos above, my oil was always yellow, right from when I bought my machine in 2012—eight years on, and it’s still the same colour.


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Categories : Quilts and fabric stuff, Tutorials

Super sky

1 12 2012

I’ve only just got around to taking these photos off my phone. I took them on 9 November 2012, around 11:30 am on my drive home from the Post Office. The sky was just amazing! The clouds streaked across the sky from one side to the other and it seemed like I was in the middle of it all — the streaks were centred on a point to the west and when I turned to the east, they were centred on another point in the east!

I’m sure there’s probably a scientific name for this phenomenon (anyone know?), but I was so taken with the majesty of it, I just had to take some photos.

Click a photo to view it larger.

Sky looking west towards the Indian Ocean

Sky looking west towards the Indian Ocean

Looking at the middle section

Looking at the middle section

Looking east

Looking east

 

 

 


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Categories : Life stuff

For my US friends

1 12 2012

Whenever I go to the US, I stock up on Tim Tams and hand them out to grateful friends in the US. Tim Tams aren’t readily available there and if you *can* find them in an Aussie shop, they are incredibly expensive and there’s a limited range of flavours.

As an Australian-made biscuit (cookie), we get the full range of flavours and they are readily available in our neighbourhood supermarkets. And they go on sale quite often.

So this picture is for my US friends — it’s my local supermarket’s many shelves of Tim Tams in all sorts of flavours, and all at half price ($1.50 per packet)! (Just as an aside, I don’t like Tim Tams — they are WAY too sweet for my taste!)

tim_tams

 


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Categories : Food & Wine

Community Quilt 34

1 12 2012

I finished the last of the latest batch of 10 community quilts today.

I had quite a bit of difficulty deciding how to quilt this quilt as there was a lot going on in it. Eventually, I decided to stitch in the ditch along the diagonals of the coloured areas hoping that I’d get inspiration for the rest of the quilt. After doing that, I was still stumped! So I decided to emphasise a small element of the quilt — the cream vertical bars. Again, I stitched in the ditch, extending the stitching from one vertical bar to the next (I used my Line Tamer ruler to stitch all these straight lines — using this ruler is much quicker for me than trying to stitch straight lines on the Sweet Sixteen without it).

Once I’d done the vertical lines, I figured that that was enough quilting for the main quilt top. The last stage was to quilt the ‘white space’ in the border around the appliqued flowers. I decided on a leaf motif (with loops), in keeping with the floral theme in the border. I continued using the same thread I’d used for the rest of the quilt.

Threads used:

  • Top: Fil-Tec Glide, cream (colour 20001; 40 wt)
  • Bobbin: Rheingold Bobbinfil (by Madeira) (white, 70 wt)

Click on a photo to view it larger.

 


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Categories : Quilts and fabric stuff

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