Hexagon Finale

Well, it's finally done! Praise God. Here are a couple pictures from Friday when I added the final borders. I rolled my sewing table over and butted it up against the big tables to make sewing the borders on, as the quilt top was getting so large, it was getting difficult to handle without it trying to fall on the floor.I didn't get the quilt frame set up until today. I ran out of steam yesterday, and I just couldn't do it. My friend Julie asked about my sewing/quilting space, so I thought I would take a long shot and show how I take over the basement area. The far end is where Louie has his pool table, but the pool table also gets used for a cutting table, by putting a large piece of plywood on top of it, then I put my cutting mats on top of the plywood. The quilting girls love it. You can also see that I have two 8' banquet tables attached together, and that is another large sewing space, and where the girls sit when we get together for quilting. The tables are covered with large cutting mats, so they can sew and cut without getting up, if they are working on smaller pieces that need cut.Wow. It has been a long time since my frame has been set up, and my Juki has 'ridden the rails'. A year and almost two months. My quilting adventure today didn't start out very good. I quilted two long rows, and I had checked the stitches underneath and thought they looked ok, but the machine was skipping stitches alot, which it rarely did ever before. I stopped and changed everything back to the way it was before it got sent out to the repair people. Evidently, the repair techs changed all the settings. I had to turn my pressure foot pressure back to where I had it, drop the feed dogs back down, adjust the bobbin tension, and the upper tension. Before I started, I decided to check the needle, because I use topstitch needles, and it had a regular needle in it, as someone had changed it somewhere on it's journey, so I changed it back to a topstitch needle.

The first two rows were totally unacceptable on the underside. I did not like how the stitches looked, as the tension had been way off. I had 'eyelashes' everywhere, so two hours later, and all the stitches pulled out, I was just going to walk away until another day, but I decided to say a prayer and rethread the machine, and check the bobbin area for lint. I rethreaded and started again, and the second time around, it sewed perfectly.
Here's a shot from the other end of the basement.About 2 hours later, the top was finished. This is my favorite part of quilting...when I can cut the quilt away from the backing, and lay it over the rollers for a picture. When you go from a flat quilt top, to a somewhat scrunched up top, it just looks so pretty, and I get so excited.Next, the quilt gets a picture taken with the backing showing. My backing, as usual, was a Goodwill sheet. I love sheets, as I don't have to do any piecing.This photo shows that I used black/violet binding. It blends into the front, and contrasts on the back. I got lazy and just sewed it down by machine, using my new Janome 6600, and using the accufeed. Wow. I love the accufeed!Louie is holding up the quilt for me. He said something like, "Hurry up! My arms are about to fall off!" I guess I got a little carried away. I didn't know it would end up so big. It is 73" x 84".The basement is almost put back together in this photo I still had to put the ironing board away. The guys are Louie and his friend Jeff. They usually play pool on Sunday nights, to practice for their Tuesday night pool leagues. Sometimes they practice on Monday nights if life's busyness gets in the way. Can you see my little 'Quilting (bear) Bee' hanging from the ceiling over the 'Loose Tensions Quilting Club' table? My bee was a Goodwill find a few years back. I just thought, 'how perfect'!Thanks for hanging with me, and letting me torture you with all the pictures I have posted of this quilt over the last few weeks. It is the first quilt I have made in a LOOOOONNNNNNGG time. I will be going 'night night' with it tonight.

As for the Juki, for those who have stuck with me through thick and thin on my journey to get her fixed starting over a year ago, other than the tension adjustment issues, she performed flawlessly. I am so happy. I gave her a kiss when I put it back on the shelf tonight. I love her.