Calling All Quilters

 

I haven't been in a brick and mortar fabric store in ages so I need to know what's up with quilting fabric. I've been using old stash for ages and my last two online orders from two different big quilting sites have been a HUGE disappointment, The fabric is too thin and slick. It feels more like clothing fabric than a nice sturdy quilting cotton. Is it me or is this just the way fabric is these days? I hate it. 

I also want to know what thread type you use for machine quilting. I wanted to use a gray on Charming Stars and I only had gray in 70/3 polyester. I've only used this thin stuff for paper piecing. After several tries I managed to get the tension on the Juki right and it seems to be working but it's a much less visible stitch and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Thoughts? 

Thread issues aside, there was still more drama to come. 

I should have figured it. All that fiddling I did with the adhesive batting plus the majorly pieced backing equaled puckering on the back. I had to rip half of it out and then iron the heck out of it to get it lay right. I guess I'll have to iron out each block as I go to get it as flat as possible which is something I've had to do before and it really does slow things down.

It was all too much drama for one day so I decided I'm just going to hand quilt that hexie runner that's been sitting here waiting its turn on the Juki since forever. It was definitely a silver lining because I really enjoy doing this and I'd forgotten how much.