WORLDWIDE Quilting Day

edit:  I had to change the title to worldwide instead of national. Oops! :)
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And I actually did some quilting!  I'm on a roll with sewing for three days in a row this week.

Today I worked on March's QM Bitty Blocks.  I'm really glad it was a simple block after the basket blocks, I was able to finish them within a couple of hours.  Before working on them, I went back to double check the various suggested layouts.  I think I am going to go with the 66x75" suggested size which means now I know for certain how many blocks to make.  At this point I have five extra basket blocks, but maybe I can work them in somewhere.


All ready to sew. I decided to do the no-waste method for flying geese. I think I prefer to do that on my Juki because I have an extended table, the blocks to be sewn can then lay flat while I am sewing. I'm glad to not have lost any placement squares in the process, they stuck pretty well.





I love the open toe 1/4" foot. I don't really like the regular 1/4" feet because I would have to change it more often when sewing pieces like the flying geese above (since the outside part of the foot hangs down). I just received the foot yesterday from April1930's, I have been looking forward to trying this foot for over a month but they were out of stock until this week.  (btw, yes, I did match up the edges after taking the picture :) ).  I am also planning to polish up the featherweight to get a nice shine.  Kevin laughs at me when I talk about it, I think it seems silly too, but the polished up machines look so nice :)


Finished. I should probably trim the dog ears...

Finally, last night I hemmed a couple of pairs of pants for Kevin. I knew the featherweight came with an adjustable hemmer, but I decided it would be best to practice first on something other than his pants. I hemmed them my normal two-step way on my Juki (rolled hem and then pinned and measured for the correct length to sew again). If I could figure out the adjustable hemmer, I could eliminate having to do a rolled hem first since it does it all together.

I had to pull up youtube to try to figure it out. The manual was ok with the instructions, but I am a visual learner. I couldn't get the edge to continue with the rolled hem, that tiny hook was pretty hit and miss. I took the foot off to see exactly how it looks when it is working as it should, which if I put it back on the machine with that slight start, I could keep it going for the most part. I think the rolled hook part should be longer or more pronounced in order for it to work better. I finally gave up after many attempts with strips of fabric. I'm really glad I didn't practice on Kevin's pants! Now, if I didn't mind an unfinished edge, it did make a nice and even hem. I think I am going to stick with my tried and true method with the Juki's foot.

I also pulled out the binding foot.  I think you are suppose to use pre-made bias binding, I had a hard time keeping it even with my strips.

Between the hemmer and the binding feet, I thought about the episode of the The Great British Sewing Bee when the contestants had to sew on featherweights.  I think only one of the contestants used the adjustable hemmer.  Kudos to him!  If the video doesn't show up on the blog post, here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN3BOkfHixs  I'm not sure why the video is so small in the screen.  I wonder if it can be watched at the BBC site.

That's about it for today.  Next up is to watch a movie and sew another flower garden block.  I am down to only 11 more to go.  So close to my 75 GFG goal for this quilt!