Welcome to Mountaintop Quilting Studio

This is where you find me exploring a variety of creative adventures mostly about but not limited to quilting. I'm a firm believer that one increases their creativity by being open to and playing with a variety of cretative endeavors ... at least that my excuse for today. Enjoy your sourjourn through my studio playroom. May you find encouragement and inspiration, and on occassion, a little pin-prick that may be thought-provoking or spark your imagination. Thank you for stopping by.

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• Don't you think it strange when ... the snow is falling on the daffodils that just came out in bloom?
• Don't you think it strange when ... you see the snow falling and hear the tree frogs singing their mating calls?

And speaking of frogs ... Don't you think it strange to have such a big sound come out of such a tiny tiny creature? Sometomes, their croaking is sooooo loud we can't talk on the phone while outside on the deck. Seriously, we do love our little tree frogs. But, I must continue with other strange happenings ...

Don't you think it strange when ... your machine has been stitching along just fine with beautiful stitch quality and then all of sudden you have skipped stitches? I have learned no to panic (easier said than done) and to check to make sure the thread hasn't jumped out of one of the guides right along the front of the machine.

Don't you think it strange when ... you quilted lots of lots of quilts just fine and then, without doing any different, all of a sudden you have a tuck in the back? What happened? Where did that tuck come from? Without warning it jus suddenly appears. And if you're lucky, you notice it right when it happens and can do a little "froggin" (no pun intended VBG) on your own.

It's been my experience the most likely culprit of a tuck in the back is caused by a backing that isn't square and straight. If it is going to happen, it will most likely happen on a large quilt (queen/king size) and you might want to check more carefully when using the extra wide backings. The fabric and sometimes have a warp or a wow (an area that is stretched out) in. You'll see a saggy section as you're loading the backing.

Another tip I have for you to help avoid tucks in the backing is to tear the yardage you'll be seaming rather than cutting with a rotary cutter. This will help to keep the fabric on the straight of grain. And the added benifit of tearing the backings is that it goes much fast than trying to line all the edges up nice and even on a table that is not usually big enough in our studios.

What kind of strange unexplainable things happen to you when you're quilting? Feel free to write in a post ... share an idea about how you deal with the strange things in our quilting lives. And may you never have to sing the quilting frog song "rippit, rippit, rippit" for very long!

LO Credits: SB Elements

Comments

• Thanks for talking about the dreaded tucks. I made a huge one on a very large quilt. There were 5-7 people in my studio all talking and asking questions when I was doing a row. Well distraction took over and I forgot to check everything. One of my buddies came over and sat on one end of the sofa while I was on the other and "frogged" She felt guilty about this distractions. Moral of the story: shoo everyone out or stop until they are gone.
  by Tamara Whipple on 17 April 2009 at 10:37 a.m.
• Thank you for the tips on the tucks in the backing. This has not happened to me often, but it is so frustrating when it does happen.
  by Randi Helling on 16 April 2009 at 11:29 a.m.