The First Quilt with Quilt Motion and Bernina Quilt Frame

I guess I’m a little behind in sharing.  I have now finished 4 quilts on my new Bernina Quilt Frame using Quilt Motion.  I also did what many of you will gasp when you hear.  I didn’t do any “testing” with it.  I jumped right in with a “real” quilt which was a baby quilt for a good friend who had a little boy back in May.  I was very nervous to mess it up because it wasn’t just a panel baby quilt.  I had bought a nice kit and pieced it.  Thankfully everything went well and the quilt turned out as I hoped.  I had a bit more trouble on quilt #2 which was a quilt for myself so it wasn’t that big a deal.  Sorry I’m getting ahead of myself.  That is a story for the next post.  This quilt has fun colors and had fish so I picked a continuous line fish design and on the alternating rows I did a wave design.  I decided rather than quilt block, by block, I’d do a pantograph.  Here’s a photo of the finished quilt.

Quilt Motion & Bernina Quilt Frame - First Quilt

Here’s a close up of the cute little fish block.

Fish Continuous Line Quilt Design

Now here’s a close up of the wave blocks.

Waves Block Close Up

What fun this is.  I was getting in a rut with my free-motion stippling.  I have yet to try “driving” the frame myself.  I figured I paid for the software/hardware of Quilt Motion, I’m going to use it.  I learn something new with every quilt.  The only problem I had with this one was the thread kept breaking even though I slowed the stitch-out speed way down.  I was using a poly rayon variegated thread.  When I switched to my old stand by of King Tut Superior Thread it started working like a charm.  I have found that cotton threads are the only ones that work for me without breakage.

While it was scary starting out with a real quilt, the results were good and I’m glad I did it.  Hope to get the other three quilts posted soon and share the experiences with the new toy.

Until then, happy sewing & quilting!