I'm Quilting!

I am excited to finally be underway. Elmer's glue stick worked great for basting the hearts to the white blocks.

I then ironed some stabilizer to the block backs and set about using a satin stitch to applique the hearts to the blocks. Applique is not my favorite thing but I finally got the hang of it on the 5th block (which is featured at the beginning of this post). I used a tear-away stabilizer and have removed it from all but that 5th block, which is the one I intend to monogram Reggie's initial on. Then it was time to assemble all those triangles into blocks. I confess to having a terrible time with this quilting business. My glasses prescription is long out of date and I can't see worth a damn. I plan to purchase a new pair of glasses with my tax return. Maybe then I'll be more precise in my cutting and piecing. One can hope, right? In the meantime I will muddle along, with my blind self.  I got a bit cocky and decided to try chaining the triangle pairs together. It looks good...

...but somehow I still managed to mess up and had to have a date with Mr. Seam Ripper. I'll get it, eventually. In spite of being blind as a bat, and not very bright, I have managed to get this far.

I'm pleased as punch. Tomorrow I'll try to figure out the monogrammer, and then sew those blocks together. My 600E has taken the place of honor in the cabinet.

She is a lovely girl and I'm still puzzled as to why her previous owner let her go so cheaply? I was expecting her to have some major issues. Tonight I think I may have hit upon why the fellow didn't think she was worth much. She's finicky about her bobbins. Extremely so. She came with about 10 bobbins, half of which unscrew and have white bottoms (like the one on the left) and half of which do not unscrew and are clear (like the one on the right, below).

You notice that the clear one has thread on it, and the white bottomed one does not? Well, I have TRIED to get her to wind onto those white bobbins....but she absolutely refuses. I'm thinking maybe the previous owner tried to get her to wind a bobbin, using only the white bobbins, and thought she was broken. Nope. She just doesn't like those particular bobbins. Which leaves me with only 5 bobbins she does like. I just ordered 10 bobbins from Ebay, for $5.99. I have my fingers crossed she'll like them. If so, I'll go buy about 20 more. I prefer to have LOTS of bobbins.