Quilting Frustrations

Today was a hard day. I have been trying to quilt this really cute quilt for Shasta at Gracie Lou's, and the thread that I am working with is giving me grief. She wanted me to use a wheat colored thread, so I went out and found the perfect color, it's actually called Wheat!, and wound my bobbins and threaded my machine. Seriously, about 10 stitches in the thread broke. Okay, it's 100% cotton thread, so it's a little thicker than the poly-core thread I'm used to using.

So, I unthreaded the machine. Rethreaded the machine. And grabbed my fabric sandwich to test the tension. Still broke. Loosened the top tension. Loosened it some more. Each time the top tension still appeared to be too tight. The bobbin thread was showing on the top of the fabric sandwich, which is not supposed to happen. After playing with it for about an hour, I thought I had it figured out. The thread hadn't broken for a while, so I was keeping my fingers crossed that it would work.

Several many hours later, and about a bobbin and a half worth of thread, I still hadn't finished the first roll. Mike had come over several times to help me. He kept saying "It's your bottom tension that's too tight!" So I gave in, and adjusted it. Still didn't help.

At about 4 PM, or maybe 3:30-ish I can't remember, we left. I was so frustrated! I own a maintenance DVD, so I went home and watched it. It helped a little. But not a whole lot. About as much as my maintenance book helped, which was about [____] that much. I still have a few ideas to try tomorrow, but I am really not feeling optimistic about it.

It makes me sad, because the quilt is SO CUTE! While I was working on the super-cute quilt, one of my clients brought me another quilt. She used fabrics from Tula Pink's "Nest". She wasn't 100% feeling the fabric. She said it wasn't really her style, and she wasn't sure what I could do with it, but I have a ton of ideas! I'm so excited! I totally love Nest, and the brightness of the colors. I just finished my client's last quilt on Saturday. I told her I'd have it done by the end of the week, so I guess I'd better get a move on with this quilt for Shasta. Here's to hoping I can get the thread thing figured out.

Oh, and I'm going to be posting my pictures of completed quilts here, if you want to check them out. I'm going to be adding a whole bunch of finished quilts soon, so keep checking in for updates! Thanks!