The Sewing Mom

As you know, I’ve been working on a quilt top using Breast Cancer Awareness fabrics that, when completed, will be donated to my daughter’s high school softball team to be raffled off. The money raised will be donated to the Susan G Komen Foundation. I finished piecing the top and mailed it, along with backing fabric, to my sister Karen. She has my mom’s longarm quilter and offered to do the quilting for me which saves me a TON of time!

She sent me these photos of the quilting she did and I think it looks fabulous, don’t you?!

My last post got me to thinking about sewing machines. I have personally ever owned 2 sewing machines in my entire life. The first one is a Singer (I still have it) that I received from my parents as a gift when I graduated from high school. It’s a great machine and I have to admit, I used that one machine for over 25 years before getting my current machine which is a Husqvarna Viking, which not only sews, but also does embroidery.

When I first got the Viking, I did a lot of embroidery and really truly enjoyed it. The problem with it developed when we moved from Illinois to Texas 5 years ago and my embroidery design software has been lost ever since. So, I can currently only embroider items that I have a design for. My computer totally crashed about a year ago so the software that was saved on it was deleted in the crash and I have no access to any of it unless by some stroke of luck, I find the cd-rom. After 5 years of looking, I’d say the probability of that is pretty low.

It would be difficult for me to say which is the >best sewing machine, there are feature of both that I really like. As I stated in my previous post, my Viking does not let me know when the bobbin has run out of thread and that is super annoying. My Singer not only told me the bobbin was empty, but also would wind the bobbin thread while the bobbin was till in the bobbin case, I never had to take it out! I REALLY liked that. My Viking has a lot more decorative stitches which I use a lot when I’m creating purses, but as far as basic sewing, they both do a great job.

Believe it or not, I have my eye on another machine which is also a Viking. It’s designed more for quilting and has a larger (longer) bed to allow for more fabric to be on the right side of the sewing needle. I also really like it because it has a scissor cutting feature that automatically cuts the threads for you when you stop sewing. It has several other features on it that come in handy when sewing larger projects like quilt tops, but, it comes at a hefty price, the reason it’s still on my wish list. Someday, I will have it, but not right now.

If the manufacturers would do something about the bobbin feature, I’d be a heck of a lot happier!

What’s your favorite machine?

Just so you don’t think I’ve been off doing nothing, I thought I’d share a couple of photos of some of my progress on a quilt I started on. Granted, if I hadn’t sat and watched football games most of today, I would have had the borders cut and sewing on so the quilt top would be finished, but I can’t lie, I sat and watched football instead! Anyway, tomorrow is another day, so will definitely get going on those borders!

The first photo is the blocks, made from 3 different fabrics, using 3 1/2 inch strips. Pieced together with 1/4 inch seams, the end result will be strip 3 inches wide.

The second photo is 6 strip sets of 6 blocks each. These are laying on the floor so I can make sure I’ve sewn them all the correct direction before I sew the strip sets together.

And finally, the quilt top all pieced together, sans borders.

Last Christmas (that’s right, a year ago), my husband gave me a present that I had specifically asked for. I had seen being demonstrated while visiting the Houston Quilt Festival in 2010 and knew that I wanted one for myself. Problem was, I really didn’t want to spend that kind of money on a basic household appliance. Well, I got it under the tree and I have to say, I LOVE IT!

I must admit, because I was somewhat in a creative funk, I haven’t sewn a stitch in over a year, until this week. So, I pulled my new Oliso iron out of it box and unleashed it on all the seams in the quilt top I’m putting together (more on that in a later post). This iron is AWESOME!

This iron always stays horizontal, no need for tilting it precariously on its end, hoping nobody bumps into the ironing board knocking it off. It responds to the lightest touch, as soon as I touch the handle, it retracts its little feet (technically I think it’s called auto-lift) and is ready to press even the thickest and most stubborn seams. It has all sorts of settings and makes quick work of pressing sewn seams. Trust me, I hate to iron, so for me to have positive things to say about an iron tells you just how impressed I am by this!

By the way, I was just excited by the way my iron performed and wanted to share my opinions. I have in no way whatsoever been compensated for this post.