As I mentioned earlier this week, there’s a new machine in the house.

I’ve had a chance to play with it, and I’ve got a sort of preliminary review mostly of the frame. The machine in question is a Juki TL-98Q, it’s on a B-Line frame.

After a couple of mis-starts, things are going well. I managed about an hour on it each Tuesday and Wednesday, in a couple of small sessions , then about an hour and half on it on Saturday. No pain so far, which is good.

We’ve begun to bond, and I’ve discovered a few things so far:

• The hammers were a little frustrating at first. They start to wiggle out as the frame vibrates when in use.   This was something I wondered about even before we brought the frame home, so I watched for it right from the beginning.  While I was adjusting the batting bar, the other side fell out and the whole bar crashed to the floor.   I’ve fixed this with some strategically placed Velcro dots.  Nothing goes bang and scares the pants off me anymore, but it’s all still adjustable.

• I really like not basting.
• I will need to install zippers for my leaders.  I’ve stuck myself with pins about 1/4″ deep twice now, and there are numerous other “grazes”. Bleeding on the quilt is bad.  OH! and it hurts! I’m thinking of doing it like Cheryl does it in this post here: http://dragonpoodle.blogspot.ca/2012/08/armpit-quilting.html
• Loading a quilt takes more time (for now) than quilting it.  🙂  I suspect that this will change soon, as I get more practice, but it took me 2 hours to load the charity quilt, which admittedly had pieced batting and a crooked back and a crooked front, so I did stack the deck against myself.  The second charity quilt took about 30 minutes (no batting) to load

• I seem to have better control while sitting with this frame.  I’ve grabbed my chair from the sewing room for now, but will look at one of the doctor’s office chairs soon.
• Man this machine is fast!  And it’s consistent.  You can’t argue with this combination.  I’m definitely the limiting factor with this setup.
• It’s nice and smooth, even in the curves.  Weird curves are all on me.
• The kitties love their new hammock

 

My mis-starts:

• Top thread breaking – I’ve bonded with the threader now. I think my issue was the sandwich being either too high (bouncing) or too loose.  After tightening it and lowering the takeup bar, there were almost no breaks. I believe the rest of it can be explained by the fact that it was 5 year old serger thread. I switched to some Paradise Dreams embroidery thread for the day on Saturday and didn’t have a single break.  Refreshingly, I barely even had to play with the tension from the serger thread to the embroidery thread.  A smidge tighter was all it needed.
• Needle fell out after I checked it – turns out this is one of the machines I have to tighten the needle with the screwdriver. It’s also important to set it completely. It stopped, I tightened. Apparently it wasn’t all the way up. I know now to stick my head down there, stick a fingernail under the needle and shove until I can see it’s seated.  What an awful noise that makes when you try to sew with the needle not all the way up.  Yes, I also changed the needle after that.
• Presser foot down. For some reason, I almost never forget this, except on this machine, where I almost always forget it. I’m getting better, and I have a reminder on the handles for the time being.  Saturday’s session was completed without forgetting to lower the presser foot once; which is a good thing, it was a charity quilt and I really didn’t want to have to pick out a bunch of stitches on it.
• When the machine started breaking thread, I decided not to put off the service until the next day, and somehow put the machine into bobbin winding mode as I opened it, which locks the machine from revolving more than one revolution manually.  That’s not documented anywhere I looked. 😀 I figured it out though, and I won’t make that error again.

Tuesday, I managed to do some basic stippling, some rather shaky McTavishing and some general playing around. As you can see, the kitties have already given approval (fur everywhere).

Wednesday was clouds and moons to practice for the charity quilt, then a quick attempt at some feathers (still need some serious work):

It will take a little getting used to for the slow tight stuff.  I find the Quilter’s Cruise Control behaves a little strangely here – longer stitches, etc.  I couldn’t find a troubleshooting document though for the QCC, so I’m currently working on the assumption that this is normal behavior.  I find as I’m getting used to it, I’m getting a better result.

Saturday’s go at the charity quilt without any sort of warm up went fairly well:

My stars can use some work, sometimes I get lost while doing them, but I was happy with the clouds, hearts and moons.  I also managed to “hide” some of the linear look of a quilt done on a short arm frame, so while a year down the road, this may be somewhat “embarrassing”, today, I’m pretty happy with my first frame quilted quilt.  Therefore, I’m posting this for posterity, or at least so I can compare down the road and see my progress. 🙂