Thursday, January 16, 2014

Unscheduled Breaks

Big day in the quilting studio. Today, after 3-1/2 months of designing, cutting, piecing and gluing, the free-motion garrison quilt was ready to go on the machine!


Here it is being basted with safety pins (the bent kind), center section first, on the cutting table.

I'm using wool batting for the first time. I usually use poly, but wool comes highly recommended by many landscape quilters and it seemed easier to handle. Also smoother and more consistent. It has a little more loft than I'm used to, but will probably work out ok.





Here the quilt is completely pin-basted, and the backing fabric is folded over the edges and pinned down to keep the excess batting from getting caught on anything. Looks a bit like a third border, but that's only temporary!

You can also see some new applique here, attached since last week's post: plants around the base of the dark-brown tree overlapping the border.







A few tree-leaves were also added to the border, extending from the branches of the same dark-brown tree.






Finally, the quilt was on the machine, with my trusty pin tool at the ready. It makes opening and closing safety pins a breeze.









After putting the slippery mat (not in the photo) on the machine bed and turning my stitch length to zero, I stitched on a test sample, then was ready to go.


I started with the window, near the center of the quilt. And then the thread breaks began.

I'm not used to thread breaks with this machine (it chugs along like a champ even when I accidentally leave the lid closed on my thread!) But the top thread had frayed and come out of the needle. Examining the stitches, I could see that the thread tension was still balanced. The bobbin compartment was cleaned out a couple of weeks ago, so lint wasn't the problem, and this is the same thread (Isacord) and the same kind of needle (a new topstitch 14) that I used on all my other quilts. So the first thing to do was re-thread the machine. It worked fine for a few minutes: then came another break. So I changed the needle, just in case the first one was defective. Again, everything was fine for a short while. Then came a third thread break, followed by a fourth.

At that point I remembered I was stitching through a layer of fusible web under the window fabrics. So I checked my needle for any goo buildup (which eventually frays and breaks the top thread)--but found none. "Hmm," said I. "The only thing I'm doing differently here is using wool batting, and somehow I just don't think that's the problem. So what next?"

Suddenly I recalled the first time I ever made a landscape quilt during the coldest part of winter, in 2010. I'd had a terrible time with thread breaks then, too, and it took me five days (not kidding) to figure out that our furnace's forced-air heat was dry enough to cause a static charge (and therefore fraying) in my polyester thread! (And sure enough, today, when I cut away the frayed section of my top thread, the cut end immediately zapped over to the sewing-machine lid (plastic) as if it were magnetized--a sure sign of static cling issues.)

Back then, I'd been reluctant to mist the room with water, fearing it might cause rust issues inside my then brand-new sewing machine (can we say 'paranoid' ?!?), so my solution had been to flick a tiny bit of water off my fingers into a zip-type plastic sandwich bag and then leave the bag sitting loosely over my spool of thread overnight. When I removed the bag the next day, the moisture had evaporated, humidifying the thread just enough (not dampening it, mind you--we're talking about a minuscule amount of moisture vaporizing inside that bag, because of course I'd never, ever run damp thread through my machine) that the static electricity was no longer a problem. No more unexplained thread breaks that winter. If it broke, I got out the sandwich bag again.

But that always involved waiting. So instead of doing the bag thing thing today, I rigged a 'humidifier' on my thread-stand platform.


Yep, a little jar of water. Very scientific, huh. :) But I figured that if keeping a jar of water among my houseplants helps humidify them a little (it does) by creating a sort of micro-climate, why shouldn't it help with dry, static-clingy thread? It's a small but steady supply of humidity, needing only an occasional refill. No flimsy bag, no flicking water, and no having to wait overnight. Notice that the container is taped securely to the extra thread spindle, so it won't get bumped and then spill (horrors!!) down onto my machine bed and into the bobbin area. No way am I risking that!

At that point it was time to close up shop and cook dinner. So I won't know until tomorrow whether or not this is going to solve the thread breaks. Wish me luck!  :-/   (UPDATE: click here to see how it worked out.)

Hooking up with two of my favorite blogs, Leah Day's FMQ Project Linkup and Sarah Craig's Whoop Whoop Fridays blog. Can't wait to see what they and their readers are up to today!

Linda

20 comments:

  1. Ooh - I love wool batting - it adds so much dimension to a quilt!
    This is a lovely design!

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    1. Thanks, Crista, and it's good to hear another positive testimony for wool batting!

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  2. Humidity huh? That would have never occurred to me. Thank you, thank you! I'm using Isacord on a project and it want's to fly away and is shredding on me. Grr...how frustrating. Your quilt is beautiful. I love the little bushes that go into the border. No boundaries!

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    1. Oh yeah, this 42 percent humidity level in my house is definitely not polyester-friendly! Hoping to find a noticeable increase in that area of the studio today, but we'll see. Thank you, that tree base needed something, and the little white areas sort of balance with the white tree on the other side of the quilt (I hope).

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  3. Awesome troubleshooting. I had no idea that static electricity could wind up breaking thread! Beautiful quilt by the way!

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    1. Thank you...and I'm happy to share troubleshooting, especially if it will save somebody those 5 days I lost on this problem back in 2010! lol

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  4. VERY interesting about the humidity. I know my house is as dry as a bone and my Isacord thread was breaking last night. Hmmm, might have to try some humidity in my sewing room.

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    1. You know, I don't remember Leah ever having addressed the static cling issue in her thread break posts, but I'm guessing maybe it doesn't get cold enough there to make that big a difference in the humidity levels. I find it much worse when the outdoor temp gets down in the 20s and teens, because of course the furnace is running almost constantly. And I keep bowls of water on several of the heat registers, which helps a lot, but not enough! The cats love the bowls, though. lol

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  5. Very clever! I like the water idea, I'll surely be interested to see if it works. :)

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    1. Susan, I'm heading up there now, fingers crossed. :)

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  6. How exciting, this part of the process is! Even with the small delay, the troubleshooting with clever remedy, I bet your just so eager to get at it. It's lovely and I am anxious to see it come to life.

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    1. Thank you, Suzanne! Yes, I am definitely eager, so when I finally got to the machine about an hour ago, I forced myself to slow down and go at a smooth, steady pace. Hoping to post an update on the humidity situation by tomorrow if not tonight.

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  7. I so admire landscape artist! My aunt does them too. A landscape is on my 10-15 years in the future to-do list :)

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    1. Ah, Lisa, don't wait that long! lol....It's just such a fun thing to do....!

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  8. Linda,

    The solution is simple. Just pack up and come and live in England. We do humidity all the time, except we call it damp. Otherwise, why don't you just store your thread in the kitchen on a shelf above the kettle?

    The quilt is looking more fab every time I see it.

    Love,
    Muv

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    1. Oh Muv, if only I could live in England!! lol The thought of that made my day. And oh, I wish there were that much room in my kitchen cabinets. Come to think of it, my kitchen is a bit more humid than the rest of the house. Thanks so much regarding the quilt, too.

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  9. Love your landscape quilt so far. I've been wanting to try wool batting, but haven't yet. How do you tension the backing of your quilt when it is just hanging over the table. Oh, I just thought of it, you must be clamping it to the edge as you do your areas!

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    1. Thank you! I put masking tape on the top and bottom edges of the backing as I basted each section, so your guess was very close!

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  10. This is a dauting project! So beautiful, and big. I've never tried wool but it's what Katie Pasiquini has used for years with her landscape quilts. Good luck, may the thread goddess be with you.
    LeeAnna Paylor
    lapaylor.blogspot.com

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    1. Thank you! This past week I avoided working on it on really dry days (34% humidity the other day) and worked on something else. I'm liking the loft of the wool batting, though.

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