A little quilting

Look! A real quilt on the frame!! This is a vintage quilt that was given to me. It has big empty spaces that I thought would make good practice spots. I love the colors and the pattern, but it is sun bleached in spots and stained. See those black spots? It's like it was folded up and the black checks bled all over it. I haven't washed it, so don't know if it will come out. Anyway, it's a good practice top! Note the repurposed mattress pad batting and the cotton sheet backing. Quilt green, blah, blah, blah...

See my quilting there at the bottom? I only had time to load this quilt (takes me about an hour and then there's the bobbin winding.... hopefully I'll get better at all that with time) and make this one pass. Not too great. The machine is stitching really fast!

OH! Forgot. I replaced all the wheels and it's moving much more smoothly now. AND - when I turned the machine over to take off the wheels I found a chunk of batting all rolled up around the rod underneath. Took that off and now it's really going fast! A friend on an email list mentioned installing a dimmer switch for speed control and I think I'm gonna do that.

Here's a closeup of one block. Aren't they cute? It's too bad this quilt is in such bad shape. But, it will be fun to practice on and we will use it and enjoy it anyway.

And a shot of my lovely assistant. She loves to get 'in' things. Any box or basket we have around, she tries to get in it. This is the basket we keep diapers and wipees in. She dumps them out and gets in. She thought the flash on the camera was hilarious! I couldn't get a shot of her laughing, though.