A No-Sew, Just for Fun Project

It's kind of sad to admit that I don't do many sewing projects just for fun to feather my own nest. But last week, I decided I was going to tackle this one somewhat silly project just because I wanted to!

Behold! My ugly, lying, worn out bathroom scale.

 Stripped of the curling black mat material.

A cheerful fabric topped with the new, nifty, and easy to apply iron-on vinyl!

Wrapped around a piece of Peltex cut to shape. Peltex is an incredibly stiff interfacing.

A spritz of permanent spray adhesive (not the quilt basting variety) and I now have a pretty scale that will at least be easy on the eyes while it tells me something ugly!

And it felt so good to take on a project and finish it completely! That three finishes for me in the past week; Poured Out 2 has shipped off to the Sacred Threads Exhibit, Sherwood Forest Love has been given to its intended recipient, and this flowery scale.

Now I'm working on a commissioned piece that should be pretty easy to finish off quickly. I think I'm going to start focusing more on how good it feels to finish a project. Maybe it will have a more positive effect than to keep thinking of the huge pile of projects I need to tackle.

How about you? Do you struggle to finish projects or do you finish one before starting a new one?

Blogger and Drop Down Coupon links

It seems I've got some issues on the blog with some drop-down coup advertising that I did not install or approve of. Nor do I want these links. My brain is mush right now so I am going to bed and will try to remove these unauthorized links tomorrow. I do put a few selected affiliate links on my blog from time to time, but they are carefully chosen by me. These new links are somewhat random and I will do my best to get them gone. Should you have any experience with this on your own site and can give me some help with how to get rid of them, I would appreciate it. The uninstall direction from the drop down coupon site don't seem to help. So sorry folks!  

Update! Seems it's not a problem with my blog, but some malware on my computer. You probably aren't seeing what I'm seeing.

Update to the Update! Phew! It seems I have gotten rid of the blasted thing. All is well. And now I will go to sleep.

Playing with Bigger Machines- Sit Down Long Arm and New Janome 8200

I went to my favorite quilt shop in my area in May to play with a new machine, but was sworn to secrecy until June and the post just didn't get written. Oops!

They were smart and had prepared for folks who wanted to try the machine; Machinger gloves and small quilt sandwiches were at the ready. So I had a fine time stitching away!

 Fun, free motion, free form feathers? Check!

But look at that foot.....something looks different.....have I gone long arm? Nope. Or not exactly.

This is the new Gammill Charm! A sit-down long arm. Now, the reason I was sworn to secrecy was because they didn't have all the programming set up when I tried it. Turns out this shop is part of the Beta-testers for this brand new machine and they had yet to get the final software installed that helped control the machine. So I ended up stitching without any speed control other than my foot on the foot pedal. This thing has some serious get-up-and-go! Once I figured out how softly to press on the pedal, I did fine.

What did I think of the machine? I really need to go back now that they've got the programming installed. I believe that the features include speed control, maybe even some sort of stitch regulation, and some sort of on-screen pantograph abilities.  It has a laser pointer on it for something but I don't know what. So that colors the usefulness of the review. It was great fun to take it for a spin!

But: I really liked the table it comes with! Very sturdy, smooth and a good size. This machine has so much power that it has potential for a lot of vibration in a table less sturdy. It also has a super huge Supreme Slider to make it absolutely smooth for a good-sized area. You can see it in the photo above.

 I love that it sits in the same orientation as a domestic machine. I have tried machines that sit perpendicular to me and found it disorienting. Plus, that puts the motor housing directly behind the needle so when sewing a long straight line, the quilt will bunch up right there.

Things I don't like: it shouldn't surprise me that coming from a long arm company that it is expensive and a bit over-kill for what it is. If you can afford it, it looks to be a fabulous machine and I have no doubt that it is well built. You would have no trouble quilting large quilts with this machine.

A New Janome

I also tried out a new Janome this week and I'm putting it on my wish list! To be clear, there's nothing wrong with my wonderful Janome 6600. But the new Janome 8200 has 2 more inches of  throat which means more free motion quilting fun on larger quilts! They bill it as a simpler version of their high-end models at a mid-range price and I agree. It still has all the features of the 6600 plus a few more stitches and other features.

It also has better lighting at the needle. The 6600 has a light right above the needle threading lever, which casts quite the shadow. There are more lights on the 8200.

Another feature I like is the accufeed system (a fancy name for built-in-walking foot) has been modified to be more removable. This seems to almost be a step backward from built in walking foot back to a walking foot attachment. But not exactly. The walking foot still attaches better and is more integrated than the usual walking foot attachment, but the important part is when it is removed, there's better clearance around the presser foot area. I find with my 6600 I sometimes get my basting pins or project hung up on the remaining accufeed mechanism when free motion quilting.

Prices

I know the dealers aren't supposed to post prices online for these newer machines and my relationship with them is important to me, so I won't give exact prices, plus machines sometimes come with different accessory packages. Let's just say that the Janome 8200 is priced about $500-1000 more than the 6600 (mine was $1700 or so) and the Gammill Charm will cost about 3-5 times the price of the Janomes.

I am toying with the idea of selling my 6600 to get the 8200, but I will have to wait a bit before I can do that. As I said, the 6600 is a great machine and does what I want tit to do which is plenty of free motion quilting, plus sewing, but if the 8200 was available when I bought the 6600, I would have gotten it.

If I thought I could get paid steadily for quilting for others, especially for doing custom quilting as opposed to edge-to-edge designs, I would think of getting the Charm or the lower-priced APQS version. But otherwise, it won't fit in our budget.

Funny Aside

I noticed the Gammill dealer (Thread Runs Through It) had posted a pic on their facebook page of this machine at a quilt show: Guess who's quilted feather was sitting on the table? They are great folks who a doing a great job of doing what they do!

Hanging Sleeve How-To

See how there is extra fabric to allow room for the rod?

 I've been putting hanging sleeves on a few projects and thought I'd share a little about how I do it. First off, I hate adding the hanging sleeve, but since I mostly make wall quilts, I have to make the best of it.

Cut a length of fabric the width of your finished project, the size for the other dimension of the sleeve depends on the size of the rod to be used or if the work with be shown somewhere, depending on the directions of the show. For a small piece a sleeve cut the width of the project by 4 to 6 inches is plenty. For a four inch sleeve as required by the Sacred Threads Exhibit for my Poured Out 2 Quilt, I cut it at 10.5 inches. That leaves plenty of room to make a  D shape on the sleeve to allow for the bulk of the hanging rod.

Hem the sleeve with the wrong side showing on the right side!

Hem the short sides by folding the wrong side out! I use a double fold hem about 1/2 inch wide. Folding the hem to the right side keeps the hanging rod from catching on the hem. Fold the sleeve lengthwise, making sure to have the 'wrong' side of the hem out, and stitch the raw edges together using a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Then set your machine to a long basting stitch and stitch along the folded side anywhere from 1/4 inch to maybe even an inch, depending on the rod to be used. After the sleeve is hand stitched on, the basting will be removed, giving you the D shape, allowing for the rod. This helps your quilt hang straight instead of bulging out around the rod.

The basted fold.

Now comes the part that drives me crazy! Pressing the tube of the hanging sleeve so it is nice and flat but also even. If your sleeve is wonky or crooked, it will cause the quilt to hang crooked. My trick is to treat the seam of the sleeve along with the basted fold as a set of nesting seams, like when piecing.

Nesting the seams for pressing the sleeve

In the picture above, the seam with the long raw edges of the sleeve is finger pressed to one side (under my finger) while the basted fold is pushed to the other side. Once you feel those seams are butted up against each other, press the tube. This should place the actual seam of the tube right in the middle.

Check to see if the fold is right on the line of stitching or not. In the above pic, the fold has gone astray. The below pic shows how the fold falls right on the stitching.

Once everything is lined up straight and pressed flat, open up the seam allowance to reduce the bulk.

Make sure the basted fold faces away from the quilt!

Then align the sleeve an even distance from the top edge of the quilt. To keep the sleeve from showing above the top quilt edge, make sure it is at least the same width away from the edge as the width of the basted fold. For example, if the basting is half an inch from the fold, stitch the sleeve at least half an inch from the edge of the quilt.

You can pin the sleeve on, or use the Elmer's Washable glue, or I've even seen a video of Ricky Tims using the free motion foot to baste the sleeve on until it is all stitched. I usually pin it. Hand stitch the sleeve securely and evenly on the back of the quilt along the 2 long sides and then also stitch the short sides; but only the part touching the quilt. Then remove the basting of the fold.

And there you are! Ready for hanging.

I am so glad I got the sleeve done on this quilt as the intended recipient was at church the following Sunday and I was able to give it to her. I think she was thrilled!