Sunday, November 19, 2017

Exploring the possibilities on my Q’nique 14+ on the Cadence frame – 1

I got my new machine on Monday, 6 November 2017 and it was all set up and I had my first lesson on Monday the 13th of November. 

Suddenly I turned from a confident FM quilter on a domestic machine to a blob of mush.  Nothing worked, nothing turned out as planned.  Worst of all I gave hubster and my daughter a go on the machine and they seemed to do just fine, not understanding why I panicked or couldn’t do it.  Now as said previously, E2E quilting was not my problem but I am quite convinced I don’t want to ONLY do that always.  What about the beautiful quilting as described in Karen Mc Tavishs’ book “Quilting for Show”?  I wanted to try that.


So setting a whole weekend aside, no inviting family or friends, I did major shopping for (cheap) fabric to start practising.  Sheet, poly-cotton, canvas and polyester batting and my fabric had straight lines on it (at this stage, my biggest obstacle).
I bought myself a fairly good mix of different colour thread to make the look at least interesting, even if screwed up.  Friday was spent washing fabric and at 06:15 Saturday morning I had my first test quilt loaded. I’m quite convinced that I didn’t do it quite right but the 3 layers are up, so I’ll just wait and see.
I had to phone another South African (in Hermanus) owner of this machine/set-up for help and I think I did something wrong with the initial layering but I did well.  Again, the E2E went smoothly but I tried my hand at different modes as well as detailed stitching.  Also did straight line stitching but only successful on shorter lines. I hope once my ruler base arrives I will be able to do better.  Realised I was way too short for the height the machine was set up, so hubster had to lower it which was a mission itself with the weight of the machine on the frame but it is done.  Just some finer details still bothering, so I’d call the dealer again tomorrow.

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