This weekend was spent doing a variety of stuff around the house. Not one single stitch in a quilting or stitching project. I did get to knit a bit Saturday and my sweater is coming along. Late last weekend I finished this applique block for my $5 quilt. I'm enjoying the applique and I like the pieced background. Between the two it takes a lot of time though.

Earlier this week I also finished a page of my chart for Quakers and Quilts.

Today my parents and sister came up and we celebrated Chris's birthday. He wanted to cook his own birthday dinner. I bought a whole beef tenderloin from Costco and he trimmed it up and cut it into filets and grilled it. I have to say, was the BEST steak I've ever eaten. Much better than Morton or Ruths Chris. He also served roasted fresh asparagus wrapped in bacon, grilled sweet potatoes and corn. I made the birthday cake (which I had to make twice) and salad. I also neglected to take any photos. We had a great time and it was great to spend time with family.

I'm gearing up for a girls weekend! More on that later....for now let's just say I'm excited!

A Bad Week Ends Well!

It has been a crazy stressful week at work this week. I ended up working 24 hours between Thursday and Friday. I was so fried that I could not knit or stitch a single stitch. Not one. Those of you who know me well know that is unusual as these things are my stress relief. It was just too much towards the end of the week. All I could do was crawl into bed and do some mindless surfing on the computer. This is simply the nature of the mortgage business and while I'm used to it, it still can be exhausting. On the other side of the coin, I hate it when it's slow!

But the week was not a total loss. Look what I brought home with me yesterday!

When the dealer brought the box out of the back room, my mouth just opened. I had no idea they'd have it in inventory and was prepared to wait a couple of weeks. I know I had not completed all my research but a good deal was too much to resist. I had been to the dealer several times and G went with me Thursday night. He said for me to go ahead and get the 820 as "you'll never need to buy another machine again". I couldn't justify the expense for my current skill level and I'd still need another machine to take to classes. So I went back yesterday and finalized my decision to purchase a Bernina 440QE. Oddly enough, it was the machine I fell in love with last year when I first started quilting and began reading blogs.

Honestly, I was a little scared to open the box!

When I got to this point, I knew I made the right decision. A good machine for me that will give me more capabilities but isn't too much for me (like the 820 would be).

Here she is right out of the box with the accessory case attached to the back.

The little accessory case is cute but I'm sure I'll soon outgrow it.

All plugged in and ready to go!

Time for me to go play!

Free Motion Quilting - BSR vs. Me

As many of you know, I'm looking for a new sewing machine. I'm also interested in free motion quilting my own quilts. My search for a sewing machine has slowed down due to time constraints but while on vacation, I did manage to stop by a Bernina store in Austin called Ready to Sew . The lady there quickly offered to hook up the BSR to let me try it out. She knew I was from out of town, knew I would not buy there, and was so gracious. I've heard so much about the BSR that I could not resist an opportunity to try it out! I have very little experience with free motion quilting. I found the BSR a bit awkward - but I was expecting that as I've heard there is a learning curve with it. And why wouldn't there be? There seems to be with everything else - at least for me. Here are the results:

I need some practice rounding out my curves. That will come with time! Last week, I also started free motion quilting with my Pfaff Grand Quilter (no frame) a lap quilt I've been working on. I decided to take some pictures of my free motion quilting for comparision. My stitch length varies but the stitches themselves aren't too bad. This is my second FMQ project and after I got started I felt less anxiety about it all. I did get better with rounding out my curves as the project progressed. Still need to improve but it was nice to see improvement during the project. I found it more difficult to determine where I'd already quilted once the quilt passed to the back side of the sewing machine.
I apologize for the poor photos. We've been having one thing after another break down -my sons car, the frig, some flooring. This time it's my computer so I had to take pics and upload really quickly before my battery died.

The Verdict: I need some more time with the BSR. It's not as obvious to me at this point as to whether or not I'd benefit from it. My free motion quilting isn't as bad as I thought it would be. What do you think?

Transforming and More Research

The Blob is transforming. I've just started the first lace section. I always have difficulty getting started. Once the fabric starts to build up, it gets easier for me to see what I'm supposed to be doing and it gets easier to read my knitting. I'm up to 489 stitches so each row takes a long time. And a long time if you have to tink back to a mistake. I'm getting better at checking my work to make sure I didn't forget a yarn over. Saves me a lot of heartache that way!

Saturday I continued my sewing machine research by visiting the local Janome dealer. I really enjoyed this Memory Craft 6600P and it has a lot of the features I'd like to have. Lock stitch, auto thread cutter, lots of stitches and a big harp. You don't need to use a foot pedal (which I don't mind) to start/stop the machine. It comes with a lot of feet and purchasing additional feet is not a big investment. Easy to figure out and the dealer would have a one on one with meet on the weekend to teach me how to use it. They'd also meet me again if needed and they offer garment sewing classes (which I'd be interested in). It's also far less expensive than the Bernina at $1600.

The stitching was wonderful with the Coats and Clark thread they had in it. It was changed to Gutterman and the straight stitching wasn't as good. The store was busy and I didn't think about messing with the tension. I'll be sure to do so next time I visit. This is a concern. This machine has 2 lights but they're not the cool to the touch lights. It's a heavy machine. It's also been well reviewed on patternreview.com which is great. I'd love to hear of anyone's experiences with this machine (including experiences with free motion quilting).

They also sell Brother machines and the sales person suggested this machine. The Brother Innovis QC-1000. It's specifically marketed to quilters. It totally operates off the screen and has a feature where you can program the pressure foot to come up each time you stop the machine with the needle down. You can then easily and quickly pivot what you're working on. I didn't get a chance to play around with this much but someone picked up one of these while I was there. It also has good but few reviews on patternreview.com. It's $1900. For some reason, this machine just didn't speak to me.

No research next weekend. It's probably a good thing. My head is still whorling and I need to develop a set of questions that I ask everyone. I also need to develop a list of things to try out on the machines.

Please keep any sewing machine feedback coming! I'd also love to hear how you figured out which machine was best for you!

First Steps into Research

This is the first machine I've looked at in my sewing machine research. It's a Bernina 440QE. Marketed to quilters, it comes with a walking foot, BSR, patchwork foot, daring foot and embroidery foot (the last 2 look similar to me) in addition to 4 other feet. Price point is $3000.

Ok....I wasn't ready to sew with it, so I didn't. I'm too early in my research and frankly I was a bit overwhelmed. So I'm taking it slow - no impulse purchases allowed! I really liked the dealer and feel they would support me. I really liked that they didn't utilize any high pressure sales techniques. I can take the mastery classes as many times as I want. Who wants to bet I'd need to repeat at least one?

This machine can have the embroidery package added to it. In doing my online research, I'm not sure I'd do enough embroidery to justify the costs. I'm shelving the idea of embroidery for now. I can revisit this later if I need to.

I like how easy and quick the feet are to change. That's actually a big deal for me. I have big hands and getting both of them in a small space to change a foot with a screw is tough. And slow.

Questions Outstanding:
1: How big of a quilt could I actually quilt with this machine?
2: Is the BSR over rated? I've done some free motion quilting and I've read some reviews that the BSR is a bit slow. Do I really need the BSR?
3: I've gotten some feedback that this machine unthreads easily. Does anyone have any experience with that?
4: Is this a machine that I could take to classes? I'd want to be sure it would travel well in the proper travel case.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has anything to share about purchasing a new sewing machine!

What Do I Need? What Do I Want?

Normally those are simple questions? Right now I'm not so sure I could answer either of them. This weekend I started my research for a future sewing machine purchase. My head is now whirling. I'm going to keep on with my research and hopefully some of these answers will become more clear. I'm also going to QuiltFest in September and will be testing everything I can get my hands on. I've spent time this weekend on Pattern Review and Sew Mama Sew. Loads of information there which contributes to the head whirl too!

What type of sewing will I be doing? I think I can answer this one at least partially.

Quilting and hopefully some garment sewing. I'd like to make knit tops for me and some cute dresses for my nieces. I'm trying to determine whether or not I'm interested in embroidery and if so, just how much I think I'd use this feature. I saw some cute dish towels that were embroidered and I think I could use this feature for the girls. Is this going to be enough to justify the expense? I'm not sure of that. I might also do some home dec.

What features do I like and must have? I'll give this one somewhat of a stab.

Needle up/Needle down - must have
Knee Lift - must have
I'd like to know if my bobbin was getting low but not a deal breaker.
Feet that easily change. My Pfaff has the screw in feet. I'd like something easier.
I want a machine that will accommodate me as I grow as a sewer/quilter.
Stretch stitches if I'm going to be sewing knits.

Questions for my blogging friends (I need all the help I can get; I'll even send my email address):
1. Has anyone bought a demo machine? Good experience? Bad?
2. Stitch - 5mm or 9mm? What would I use 9mm for?
3. Will embroidery software work well with Windows Vista? I saw something online that suggested otherwise.
4. Will I need/use a variable stitch width? What for?
5. Do you have an embroidery machine? How often do you use it? Do you feel you use it enough compared to the cost (including software upgrades, materials, etc)
6. What feature were you surprised about and now cannot live without?

I'll be posting more about my experiences as time goes on. Thank you all for any and all suggestions or personal experiences (whether they be positive or negative).

Today I bought some of this. Guess what for?

Not applique....but look, it was an advertised use on the box which I thought was awesome!

It even had applique directions on the back of the box. So unexpected!

But I digress....As I've mentioned before, this is my third quilt and quite a challenge for me. When I went to square up the blocks, some of them were a bit short in places. which would not give me a smooth edge. Wonky in, wonky out. I don't want wonky so these blocks have been sitting. This morning while cruising through the Quilters Knitting Forum on Ravelry, the author of the Knotty Knits blog mentioned that she learned a great deal from following the Mod Sampler Quilt A Long from Oh, Fransson! It's a beautifully presented blog, one I visit frequently. But I didn't catch the importance of this post when I saw it. In it, she shows you how to use freezer paper and give your block a nice sharp edge for piecing it to the next block. I've now squared up all 12 blocks and I'm ready to figure out how to add the frames to these and get them moving along!

I hate ironing. In Florida. In July.
Ok...I hate it anytime!