I have been quilting approximately 40 years. I came to it relatively late and certainly not from a hand sewing background or family tradition. I did make clothing both for myself and my husband and children and I did some embroidery back in the 70s when everyone did embroidery but I was not taught how to do any of this stuff by some master. Sometimes that means I am the equivalent of a goofy foot snowboard rider, doing the stuff backward. Case in point happened this week. I am quilting along on the Washingtonian. Like many people I had gotten one of those soft silicone collar thimbles trying to keep my finger bunion (I don't know any other way to describe it) from getting painful. I quilted the entire center of the quilt with my new pink thimble but my progress seemed slower and slower. Finally I threw up my hands and dug out a metal thimble--it was brand new so I didn't have to worry about any holes in the top from quilting through the metal or snags to pull the thread.
Well let me tell you, no matter the minor pain from the metal thimble, it is so much faster it is just like night and day. With the silicone thimble I had a hard time making small stitches and a harder time stacking stitches before pulling through. Now I am back to my better quilting and I am stacking up to 8 stitches on the needle before I pull it through. What I thought was an age related problem turned out to be an equipment problem. Duh!
No comments:
Post a Comment