April Goal - Not a Finish

Well I was bummed that I wasn't able to finish my April Goal, which was quilt the family tree quilt and bind it.  However, to my defense I was having machine problems that I couldn't quite figure out.  I would have the tension all set to where things should be (yea) and then periodically it would create a loose stitch and I wasn't even going over a seem or anything.  Then underneath the machine would periodically create these loopy things and it was driving me nuts!  I just couldn't figure it out and was getting extremely frustrated with it.

Just so you know it is definitely not suppose to do this.  So I had the person who sold me the machine over and she tweaked the bobbin and completely took apart my tension knob and put it back together.  She also fixed my frame, which I guess was extremely loose and showed me how to adjust that as well.  All in all after about an hour of tweaks and adjustments, my machine started to do this...

Now that is what I am talking about.  I hate to be a perfectionist, but I like "perfect stitches".  This may be the death of me one day, but this is how I want my quilting to look.  

So now I am finally quilting my mother in law's quilt.  I am switching between two top threads Superior King Tut 983 (brown) and 903 (blue), and they are both variegated.  I like the look it is giving the quilting.    

Here are my swirls, which are going in the "blue portion" of the quilt, only because I really can't do feathers that well yet.  I am doing a more bouncing around swirl, which I want to practice making a little denser.  I am currently taking one of Angela Walter's Craftsy classes, which can be purchased here.  She does a couple different versions of the swirl and I am doing the bouncy one at this point, but definitely want to move up to the denser one because I kind of like that better.  I am on lesson #7 out of 10, so I consider my swirls a work in progress.  

In the branches, I am doing the "flame" technique that you can find in Natalia Bonner's book called "Beginner's Guide to Free Motion Quilting", which can be purchased here.  I think this is my favorite part of the quilt so far.  

In the leaf area, I am quilting loops and leaves, which is also from Natalia Bonner's book that I mentioned above.  

My plan is to get this quilt finished up this week!  

Linking up to WIP Wednesday link party hosted by Lee at Freshly Pieced.

Happy Quilting!