Posts Tagged by A John Watts Quilter

John Watts Quilter and Janome 1600P combination

A few years ago Mum and I went shares in a John Watts Quilter and Janome 1600P combination. I can’t say that I have ever been truly happy with the set up. I have spent hours unpicking and re-threading trying to find the right thread/needle combination. Recently I sliced the leader cloths lengthwise and added zippers. This has saved my back. I can now pin the quilt to the leader cloths on the floor or table and then just zip them onto the frame.

The other night I spent at least 25 minutes adjusting tension etc after suffering thread breakages. I finally changed the thread. The frustrating thing is that I was using the same brand of thread that I used with success for my last quilt I just changed the colour. I finally got to a point with the new thread where I could quilt a full run across the quilt, most of the time, without a break. After a while I was victim to skipped stitches but only when I travelled one direction. Surfing the web I see that there are a number of people that have suffered the same types of issues with this combination.

Home Quilting Systems is a Yahoo Group that has alot of information about quilting at home in general, but also about particular systems. For me it means that I have been able to print out a couple of cheat sheets detailing best thread/needle combinations. I have a couple of tops that I am trying to get done for AQC so I will use this information as a starting point. I have ordered a couple of different threads to try. I also ordered a walking foot for the Janome 1600P. If the next combination that I try doesn’t work I will pull the machine off the frame and at least I can achieve some straight line quilting with the walking foot. The frame can then be used for basting. I have lost far too much time with this set up to want to invest much more.

Merryn inspecting the Fire Patchwork Quilt

 Above, The Fire version of the Fire and Ice Quilt kit.