I’m sure some of you are wondering my thoughts about this challenge.

I’ve been thinking about it. Now that I am beyond August 31 - it’s time to give you some summary thoughts about this challenge.

I finished quilting all 90 of the charity quilts that I wanted to get done PLUS 6 more. That means that all 120 of the goal of 120 charity quilts for 2023 are now quilted!

I just have to actually finish them. I did have a goal to also get them trimmed, however, I did not get that done. Too many reasons but mostly it was procrastination combined with the heat. Touching that poly batting when it is between 80-100F in the room just isn’t pleasant. I’d rather do it in the next couple of weeks as the weather cools, so it won’t be so objectionable. I may just trim 10 and then bind them, etc.

So…my thoughts.

• First, of all, it’s a big sigh of relief that I finished. It was intense.

For those of you who have a long arm business - you all handle the stress very well of the deadline thing. Normally when I do this charity quilting or even my own quilts, I’m not working under any “outside imposed deadline”. My deadlines are all my own. If a machine decides to give me fits, well, I can just leave it and walk away and either work on it myself or send it off for repair. But if you are trying to meet a deadline - boy, that is stress. It really was the aspect I hated the most of all.

I know. I know. It was my OWN deadline. I could have changed it. My husband teased me about getting fired if I didn’t get down there by 8 and get to work. I just laughed. However, that self-imposed deadline is also the reason I got finished.

• Second, I realized how much time I waste in any given day.

I could do this day in and day out - in theory. The thought actually is pretty terrible to me, however. At least at this time in my life. At least not with that kind of pressure or goal. Quilting is supposed to be fun - not drudgery. While I was in week 2 and 3 of this project, it was pretty much “walk down there (my long arm room is in the basement) and just do it”. And so I did. How I felt did not enter into the equation.

I did plan on working from 8-12 am each day on this project. Then I had to come upstairs and think about other things like our big meal. Now, we eat our big meal in the middle of the day, so there is some preparation for it. I don’t whip it up in 15 min - You Tube videos or not. I tend to like to go grocery shopping as soon after breakfast as I can because there are fewer people in the store and I can get in and out quickly. However, this month I did not do that. I figured if I went out first thing, I would get a late start to my ‘work’ and then it would feel like it took even longer.

• Third - I understand now why a lot of long- armers have 2 machines.

Besides the fact, if they are both working well - and computerized, they could possibly both go at the same time, but more than that, they have that backup that would give them assurance that if one machine is having issues, they have the other one to use. This is absolutely not saying or indicating that I want a second one. I do not. I just now understand why so many have two machines. I did not before I did this month long push.

• Fourth - Now I will make some progress towards getting my machine set up the rest of the way.

I did basic loop quilting on all of them (about 60”x80-90” quilts) - not electronically controlled. I felt like it was the fastest kind I could do. I kept reminding myself, that “this” quilting’s purpose is to keep the layers together and it was “good enough” and to not feel bad or guilty for not doing something more elaborate or different. Sometimes it is easy to over-think things. I actually figured - am pretty sure, anyway, that what I did was faster than anything that would be done computer controlled. The only way the computer controlled could be considered faster would be that I could do other sewing as well while the machine was working. And that is where I actually “want to be”.

Last year when I got my machine, I tried to set up the electronics by registering the software I got. However, I had issues. It didn’t want to go through the registration process. I knew at that time it was going to be an issue and was going to involve phone calls, etc. I wanted to jump right on learning how to use the machine by myself FIRST. Now I think I know how to do things - and feel as comfortable as I think, anyway. So, NOW I can tackle all the phone calls and try to wade my way through it.

At least now I have the minimum self-imposed goal met for the charity quilts finished on it for the year - that relieves my mind of a lot of stress.

I probably have 40-50 tops I want to quilt for my other projects (Up Greens, and various other types of quilts) - and would love to have the computerized part for them going! I want to be able to use cool designs. And yes, I would do that for the charity quilting as well, once I get it figured out. In fact, one lady here suggested single colored tops - for those teenage guys - I think one side red/one side black, or one side red, one side gray, etc. would be great - with some abstract quilting or a cool design.

• Fifth - I did not notice physical tiredness or issues due to the time in front of the machine, guiding it.

When I first got the machine and started using it I found that I had sore places. I think my body had to get used to it - as I remember when I first got it that all that walking back and forth on it made my back hurt and my feet hurt, etc. However, I took much of your advice and got some rubber mats and anything else anyone advised that I use. It all helped. Thank you. I know that if I had done this much quilting on my domestic machine that my left wrist would be screaming at me right now. But it’s not. It’s feeling normal - which means I don’t feel it at all!

• Sixth - here are some some ‘non typical quilting’ things I added to my room that I found handy.

  • a telescopic magnetic grabber - picks up dropped pins. I discovered I had one about 2/3 of the way into the month. I had forgotten that I bought it last fall.

  • a flashlight

  • a large makeup brush that I used to clean out the bobbin area with

  • plastic containers for holding my bobbins

  • a de-warper for my bobbin case

  • Band-aids (not that brand) - sometimes I stabbed myself when pinning the backing on - requiring some minor medical intervention

  • Kleenex (not that brand) - goes along with the necessary Band-aids!

• Seventh - issues I ran into

  • I opened up a backing I was ready to put on the machine when I saw a big seam right down the middle of the fabric. Grrr. I threw it to the side and chose the next top (I had a bunch of them already paired up with top and backing, thankfully).

  • Thread breakage and things I noticed or did

    I used Isacord or Madeira, mostly it was polyester 40 wt. embroidery thread as I think the sheen is so pretty. Some days it felt like the machine wanted to break my thread more than others. I tried an unknown brand and it seemed to not care for that kind at all. It was frustrating to me as I want to be able to use any thread on my machine at all - simply by learning its intricacies.

    I tried switching to manual mode of the machine and it didn’t break thread nearly as often as precise mode. I do not know why. I am suspicious that maybe something is wrong with my regulator. I will find out for sure once I get it going with the computer.

    I did find one time that I had a piece of thread caught in the bobbin case and was apparently giving me fits - causing breakage when I had no idea otherwise what was the case. I found it by using my flashlight and pulled it out with the makeup brush and tweezers.

    I realized that at times the upper thread slipped out of the upper thread guides and caused undue tension on the thread causing it to break. I don’t know why it does that at times. Maybe because it was slippery embroidery thread?

    No, I do not use the same brand of thread in the top and bobbin, but I did try to use approximately the same color -- that is the same with my domestic machine quilting as well.

  • I found it easier psychologically if I could start with a quilt on the machine so when I went down to start quilting for the day that I already had a quilt ready to go. I then always left the door shut so the cat didn’t get in there (once I saw he wanted in there)!

So there you are. Some observations, summary thoughts and ideas for the future.

For now, today - Sept 1 as I wrote this - I did not quilt anything today!

I did, however, spend some time cleaning up and sorting and organizing and began to work on preparing more backings for another set of charity quilts. I just felt like “taking a break today”.

In fact, right after breakfast I worked on backings, then came to the computer, then to the garden and then back to prepping more backings…then dinner, more backings and now to the computer!

Thank you so much for coming along.

Oh - I also got 420 labels made since I made them all month long!

AND a whole plastic tub of hearts -

(I worked on hearts because I needed to be nearby for the embroidery machine - to fix issues when the thread broke. Once again - some thread broke more often than others. My 8900 and 12000 Janomes are near enough to each other that all I had to do was swivel my chair to fix broken thread on the embroidery machine when it beeped at me or finished up a bobbin.)

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

And thanks for enduring this challenge with me! I know it’s not been easy on at least a few of you! I will now get back to regularly scheduled sewing and quilting. This break has made me chomp at the bit for getting back into actually being creative!

Have a great day wherever you are reading!

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