A friend of mine works at the quilt store, so I generally try to plan my trips around the days that she’s working which was the case yesterday. With 3 (now 1.5!) blocks left to piece I thought it was about time to buy the fabric for the back of the quilt I’ve been working on. The finished size will be 84″ x 84″ and with a recommended 4″ around all sides I was getting close to needing wide back fabric and since that would save me sewing a seam, I decided to start there. I finally decided on this Kaffe Fassett Green Carpet 108″ backing fabric. It has the medium green, lime green, and a bit of purple in it so I hope it plays well with the front of the quilt.
As I was checking out, the owner noticed that the tension was off a little bit – I had taken my most recent finished block with me – and suggested I clean out anything that had accumulated under the needle plate. I love it! I appreciated so much that she wants the quilt to look the best that it can and offered a way to help me out. I went home and the first thing I did was to open up the needle late.
Is it just me, or do these piles of lint and dirt that propagate resemble an alien creature to anyone else? The finished pile looked like a little alien that could just stand up and walk out of that machine on its own if it wanted to! The best part? My stitches immediately looked perfect. I do clean my machine regularly but her point was I needed to do it more often with paper piecing. Kaffe Fassett backing fabric? $15.99 a yard. Passing along some much-needed advice? Priceless.
In some cases, the wider backing fabric ends up being much cheaper than piecing lots of yardage…just discovered this on a recent purchase. The shop owner was really helpful. Love the backing for your quilt! Can’t wait to see the finished project!
I didn’t know that either about it being cheaper but ironically, my friend who works at the quilt store said that is the case sometimes and suggested we price out a couple of fabrics both ways. Since I’m planning to do the Amy Ellis sew-along that starts before too long, I was fine with having extra because of the colors I’m planning to use for that quilt.
Yay! I’m glad the cleaning helped!
Thank you so much for your help! I actually finished the 25th block but didn’t get the final piecing done; I ended up on an impromptu walk around Spring Creek this evening (in way too hot temps to be doing that!).
Your post made me laugh! No the rest of us have VERY VERY VERY clean sewing machines and never have dust of lint 🙂 But seriously – yes I have been invaded by these same alien creatures even though I too try to keep my machine clean. I think it is dependent on what type of fabric but I do not remember if it was flannel that I was working with last that made a “Super Alien Blog”…
Oh yes – flannel, fleece – those all create little monsters! Also whenever I stay stitch around the edges after basting always seems to be the worst once it gets batting in there.
Yeah, I find teeny tiny space bunnies under there too!
I usually wait until they’re really big and scary – haha!
😀
Oh dear! I blow out my bobbin chamber every time I change it, but I am afraid of what I’ll find if I really look!!!
And sure enough, this am the bobbin monster attacked; I pulled off the needle plate, and ……it was ugly.
Whew! Glad I’m not alone! I hope you took a picture too – haha!
Good to know.