Progress and Frustration

On Tuesday, I introduced my friend Jeanie, a SU Demo and an amazingly talented crafter, to Mary Jo's fabric store in Gastonia, NC.  Mary Jo's is THE place to go for whatever type of fabric you are wanting.  They have particularly good selections of special occasion and quilting fabrics.  We went to another supplier in Gastonia to pick up some essential components of fabric shades I am making for a customer - items that would have cost me a fortune in oversize freight charges on UPS.  But since we were in Gastonia, no point in passing up an opportunity to go fabric shopping, right?

The only thing I needed was the backing fabric for Nai Nai's quilt and selected a tiny white polka dot on a purple background.  Purple is her favorite color.  Jean bought some really cute tulle and sparkly sheer to make a fairy princess outfit for her grand-daughter.

While waiting on some trim to come in for my next job, I was able to get the back pieced and the quilt sandwiched.  This morning I did the final basting so I feel like I'm making good progress towards getting this done in just a few more days.

The frustration hit when I went to machine quilt.  First I had accidentally disconnected the IDT on my Pfaff - it is the built in even feed foot. I love my Pfaff sewing machine.  It is without hesitation the single best purchase I've ever made.  I use it for everything now!  I soon figured out what was wrong but not before I had to rip about a half width's stitches.  Then I tried what I'd envisioned for the quilting.  That didn't work well either, but not because of the machine.  More seam ripping - ugh!  I'm not sure what was wrong but knew that I'd better go to a backup plan fast.  My husband had arrived on the scene to help me with my real work. 

So I've done some quilting in the ditch to get almost sufficient quilting for the top.  I still want to experiment with some other types of machine quilting.  Doing a project in a hurry sure means lots of compromises.