I may have spoken too soon about my success with painter's tape. Although it performed perfectly with the Circle quilt, I didn't have any luck at all with the Piece of Cake II quilt. The whole exercise proved to be futile, including rearranging my workshop in order to use my small Bernina for the quilting as well as the painter's tape.
What went wrong? Well, I chose the Bernina because the guide bar attaches with a screw and is very secure in its place. While my Horizon 7700 has a guide bar it only slides into the walking foot and it's a loose fit. When I start to quilt and the fabric nudges the bar, the alignment is thrown off and my quilting isn't even. I'd love to use the 1600P but it doesn't come with a guide bar and there isn't even a place to attach one to the walking foot.
Perhaps the quilt was too large or the angle of feeding the quilt through the machine (which is not set into a table) was too much for the tape. As soon as I got in position the tape popped off the quilt. So frustrating! Also, the narrow harp space available in this particular machine is not adequate for my large quilt. The bulk got caught up and the stitches were not forming correctly since the feed dogs couldn't move the quilt forward. There is no sense in struggling to quilt on this otherwise gorgeous machine when I have other easier and more comfortable options.
So I once again shifted all the tables, prepared another machine (the 7700 with masking tape holding the guide bar in position) and tried again. Things are going smoothly now and I'm quilting a double cross hatch with vertical and horizontal lines (not diagonal). It looks pretty and will give a lovely, fluffy texture to the quilt. I think it's ideal for this particular project and it's going quite quickly since the space between the double lines is 4". Once I'm done I have decided to trim and bind the two finished quilts before starting the third. I need to have some hand stitching to do and securing the binding will be just the ticket.
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