The Sewing Mom

I finished piecing the top of my latest project, a wall hanging. I purchased the kit from a vendor at the Cincinnati Quilt Festival and was very excited to put this one together. I think it was my favorite thing that I purchased at the festival, next to my new sewing machine! Oh, and I did stitch this on my new machine which I thought did a wonderful job!

The next step is completing the applique that will be in the blocks in between the “spools”. It’s very simple raw edge applique, and just as soon as I get it cut out, I will start stitching it in place. The thing that is new to me is that the applique pieces are out of wool which seemed to be a huge trend this year. I’m still deciding if I’m going to stitch by hand (which I despise) or on the machine. Both of my machines do a very nice blanket stitch, so…

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 week was my mom’s birthday! My 2 sisters and their families were able to help her celebrate and spent the long weekend together doing just that. While they were together, they managed to do some fabric shopping at one of my favorite quilt shops and they also had their sewing machines out long enough to create these pieced table toppers or wall hangings. I sure do wish I could’ve been there too!

Aren’t these cute?! My sister Grace created these and I think they’re pretty handy, not to mention good looking! I’m not so good at getting zippers into my creations, especially small items, but I think she does a great job! I’ve been trying to decide which one of these I need to beg her to send me and I just can’t decide, what do you think?

If you’re in need of a gift or maybe you would like one for yourself, Grace does sell her creations to the public.