The Placemats are Finally Finished!

I got very disappointed in the stitch quality of the Canadian Singer machine I brought with me.  It clearly needs a full tune-up.  So I didn't do any more quilting on the placemats I started earlier until I got my lovely little Singer Featherweight.

So now I can show you the results:

Each of the sewing machines has strong points.  The Canadian Singer has the ablity to drop the feed dogs so you can do free motion quilting.   However, as I mentioned, the stitch regulator is not working well on that machine.

The Featherweight is, as the name implies, much lighter and more portable.  But it does not have the capacity to drop the feed dogs.  The generic walking foot and free motion foot that I bought fit both machines.  Hooray!  One can do free motion by putting a piece of plastic over the feed dogs, but I have never done that.  And my free motion experience is limited and rusty from lack of practice.

So I decided, for this project, to stick to the walking foot and straight lines.  Here are some close ups of different stitching patterns.  In some you may be able to see some awful stitching in the ditch with varying stitch lengths (mostly very tiny) that happened when I tried to use the Canadian machine - no slight against that machine - it just needs a tune up.

Stitching around the star.  Even my stitch-in-the-ditch needs lots of work!

Just a thread-stitched star.

I like this one and it was very easy!

All in all, I am glad I made them.  But now I think I have put too much work into them to use as placemats!  I definitely want to do more with this idea of liberated quilting.  It definitely fits my style.  And I need to do lots of practice with free motion quilting, maybe on my more modern machine.  I am still lusting after a new Bernina, but that will have to wait until we are in just one house, with just one mortgage.

I need to get lots of practice with free motion to see if I really want to spend almost $1,000 on the Bernina stitch regulator feature!