Bobbin Chicken

Come on, we all know we’ve done it. Rolled the dice, played the odds. Will the bobbin run out before I get to the end of this row, this block, whatever you’re trying to beat?

Sometimes we win! Especially fun when you’re sewing with friends and you get to holler out, “I won at bobbin chicken!!!” and everyone hurrays and claps for you. Then you measure what you had left, four inches, two inches, or did you just gasp over the line. Who can get closest?

Losing at bobbin chicken is especially frustrating. You are stitching along, and sometimes you knew you were close…sometimes it sneaks up on you and you realize the last five inches or more, you had no bobbin thread. Then you must stop, wind another bobbin and restart. Time consuming, but, more often, it just upsets your rhythm. 

Longarming bobbin chicken is a level up. I can’t see my bobbin as I’m quilting. But, I have a pretty good idea based on quilting density and other factors and, believe it or not, the sound of my machine, when I’m close to emptying a bobbin. (My family refers to my hearing as ‘bat hearing’.)

I had a first time experience this past month and I am blessed with very understanding customers. I lost at “all the thread and bobbin” chicken. Not only did I use every last inch of the bobbins I had wound, but I emptied the top cone as well! The pattern was a first time use for me and the scale was on the smaller side, and, boy, did it suck up thread. That quilt probably had over 2,000 yards of quilting thread in it when I was done. 

I was not even five inches from the end of the quilt. On day two of running the quilt was when I realized my impending doom. I jumped online to order more thread, but it was the weekend. The sad text went to my customer that her quilt was almost done, except…

The thread showed up later that week and I had it finished, off the frame, and picked up by my customer all within hours of that new spool of thread arriving at my home.

Lesson learned? Maybe. It’s hard to tell with some patterns. I may get surprised again. Fingers crossed.