Finally Finished

By the end of the day yesterday I was SO CLOSE to having Crumb Cake quilted. I was on the last row, getting that same excited feeling that comes when you see the finish line at a race. Then, a big thunk and the engine stall light came on. The needle had gotten itself bent somehow and gotten entangled in the bobbin case. %$^ *^@%#% . I fiddled with it for a while but finally convinced myself to walk away before I did some sort of permanent damage, either to myself or the machine. Those are the moments in time that have caused me to sew through my fingers in the past.

I had already figured out my pantograph issues. As usual, it was a combination of several small things. First, I haven't yet installed the hardware to hold the table leaves together and there is a bit of a shimmy in the middle. I wasn't worried about it yet, because lets face it, my pantogropaphy is shaky enough on its own so far that a little table wobble won't make much of a difference. Secondly, I hadn't tightened up the little nut that holds on the laser stylus. It stayed put well enough on its own, but add a little loose table leaf vibration, and it worked its way to a slightly different angle than it had started. Having tackled that issue, I was sure the engine stall bent needle issue would resolve itself in the light of day. Sure enough, after swim team this morning I got it all fixed up and quilted the final row.
The pantograph I chose (in keeping with the Maire Antoinette theme) is called France. It ends up looking mostly like puzzle pieces to me, but when I showed it to Kurt he picked up on the fleur de lis right away. I ordered a packet of pantograph patterns from Golden Threads and this is the first one I've tried. Now that I've figured out how to line everything up, a pantograph does seem to be a simple and straight forward way to get a consistent pattern across the entire quilt top.