It's my new machine!

I'm posting about my new machine.  I named her Molly.  I might change her name. Regardless I will probably forget whatever I named her, like I forgot what I named my Mustang.  I don't forget much, but made up names for inanimate objects seems to be my Bermuda triangle of information.

You see, it's my birthday this month.  I get weird about my birthday.  Presents make me nervous but I want to give myself a present cause I like me, so 4 weeks before my birthday when life was going BADLY I sorta caved.  I'd wanted a non-lowest tier machine for a long time.  I had a couple Juki's in my amazon list but couldn't justify the price .  During a sobby phone call to my husband about the stress of getting through the day while my garment sewing machine made me tug my double wedding ring blocks over the feed dogs inch by agonizing inch I expressed an early birthday present would make my life not suck, because despite myself I still love sewing and want it to be pleasure, not pain.

He told me to go for it, and even though I don't do spontaneous... I did..  I'd found this Brother PQ1500S on Amazon that I hadn't even registered before.  I read one details blog review on it.  The review listed it's pros and cons.  Even though one con was difficulty to replace the bobbin/can't see the bobbin without a clear screen, and thats important shit...I hit buy (did you guys take advantage of Turbotax offering an extra 10% on your tax return if you got it through amazon?  I did, so you know, it seems like it's free right?) and a few days later it was here.  I read the reviews after...

blurry lights off cell phone picture

Things I am dinking with - it seems set up for cones and short spools.  I have half a straw on the machine because when I used the thread cutter it was sending Auriful spools bouncing off of the thread holder.  There's this nifty apparatus for holding spools on but Aurifil is too tall for it? Tinkering with the thread cutter, when the tension is right it leaves enough length, when its not I have to rethread a lot (trust me, it is probably user error.) Even with the same thread above and in the bobbin, it's tricky getting the tension right until I figure out where I'm going wrong.


Sews like BUTTER, I was able to easily do straight quilting, it doesn't turn my seam allowances the wrong way I'm saving 50%+ as I sew together my double wedding ring quilt sections.  It has 1/4" marking that seem to be accurate..  It has a great harp space and I doodled a bit to check out the FMQ and I didn't pull out my own hair while doing it!  Bobbins hold a lot of thread, even if it's hard to get to it (ps, I think it's a benefit to be left handed due to the bobbin set up) It has a super sexy knee lift - I did not know I could feel like  *that* for a machine, but yeah, it's my favorite feature so far.

Finishes & Spontaneous Starts.

So many in progress things (and so many finishes that weren't needing a blog post - I seem to get a kick out of making certain things repeatedly, go figure!).

I finished my king triangle quilt, one I started April 2013... the damn thing should be longer but eh....  Just in time, as the warm weather has made my husband eschew thick cozy comforters -  We are using two quilts, I'm using one of my lap quilts too. How the fuck did people used to get by on just quilts?  Maybe I read Little house on the Prairie wrong.  Maybe they used a goose down comforter they got at land's end under their quilts.  I have the series on my birthday wishlist, so maybe I can reread it and it will tell me how they didn't freeze to death each winter.

Er..OK, so I've decided to regain my voice, regardless of any of my mothers or mothers-in-law reading it or not! I do like to swear, tis true.  I also like taking crappy pictures and not worrying about it as much as I'd like, so this seems like a great decision.

I'm also working an a double wedding ring quilt which was on my quilt bucket list.  I  think it's going to be twin sized. I have a boyfriend who's mother got him one and seeing it reinvigorated my interest. I wish I had gotten my new awesome sewing machine before I started this.  1/4" seam allowance was just a vague marking on the old one.






I started a new bucket list project too, cause finishing things that are taking up room would be anathema to me.  It's a Dear Jane. I don't know why.  Well I do, its because I saw this here, loved the quilting loved the version of this quilt, it was one of my first 5 pins on Pinterest.

GO DEAR JANE! I'm excited about it, so far of the dozen blocks I've made I've had 20 minute blocks and 90 minute blocks. 5.5" with sashing Gah, 220 some blocks.  It hurts.  Nevertheless I don't have a day job so sometimes I can geek out on sewing for hours at a time. 

Lush Uptown, a Pillow For a Hunter.

This is just a pillow I made for my favorite Bambi murderer, I mean person who is OK with the fact that meat doesn't come from a grocery store if you really think about it.  As soon as I saw this print from Lush Uptown which seems to be a re-release from 2008, knew I had to make him something from it since he wasn't making it out for hunting :(

I thought it would be easy and fun to embroider around all the different paint by  number colors with a backstitch.

DONT DO THIS.



 I can't  say how many hours I spent just doing the bits that I did.  It's a hassle, all those little curves made my head and fingers ache.  I ended up FMQ more of it than I embroidered because life is short and I didn't want to die while still working on this.

The back is a paper pieced thing I put together, I won't admit how many problems I had with it, but uh... yay it's done!  I don't hate it overall, and screw it, maybe nobody ever made him a pillow before and he'll appreciate it ;) 

On the brighter side it gave me a chance to order a FQ of all the painter's palette prints which I'm a big fan of!

Embroidery of the Month

I've been working on SO many embroideries, and finally finished a few of them recently.  I am not sharing all of them cause there seem to be a lot of topless ladies in them and/or they are neat but not impressive in my opinion, but I wanted to share this one.

This is from an art piece by Magicomora at deviant art.  He's a Spanish artist who has a lot of cool stuff, if you like that sort of thing, which I sure as hell do. It's titled "Innocent Bomb".  I plan on doing a second one with pencils and oil pastels for a lot of the coloring to save some hours.  A young lady of my acquaintance requested one without a bomb in it.  I think that's just asking for Bambi, but I'm not going to argue semantics!

Birch Bay Spring Quilt

I've been starting and making lots of things, as well as finishing plenty of small things, but I finally put together and finished my Birch Bay lap quilt from this shopping trip fabric buy.  And felt like writing about it, so here I am!

Not too much to say, it's prettier in person, one of my cats made it into a bed within minutes of the finish and me putting it down on the coffee table so I know it's a winner.

 Here is the truth.  I had to take it off my quilt wall mid assembly to take photos of something else and I didn't keep track of what went where so the rows did not go together in the way they were supposed to. Whatever, I don't care,  it's bright and cheerful and I have it wrapped around me this very moment.

I put most of my Heather Ross' Mendocino scraps in it since it matched the colors I was using which makes me happy, no more hoarding them in a drawer, I get to look at the mermaids and seahorses and octopi every day.

Backed with remants from the front & a vintage sheet.  The binding is Rashida Coleman-Hale's Koi in plusses.  I admit it, I love this print more than almost anything, already made a shirt out of it, want to by more yards so I can hoard it for no good reason except sometime the world might end and I'd be proud to leave a super awesome stash behind.

Main fabrics -
Alison Glass Bike Path in Chartreuse
Lizzy House Pearl Bracelet in Meyer Lemon
Kaufman Interweave Chambray in Sorbet
Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee Ladder Dot in Fuschia
Lizzy House Pearl Bracelet in Chat Noir
Moda's Comma in Black and Chalk

The Ellie Bag

I've been sewing, but also having a nice busy life.  Well, that and I'm on my third round of antibiotics for strep this year, as well as suffering through some colds and 24 hour viruses gotten from some evil children!  Anyway, I'm going to focus on the fact that I'm busy with fun stuff so haven't been writing.

Awhile back I saw and pinned this cute bag tutorial, the Ellie travel case tutorial from over at Fabric Mutt.  I took a day to sit down and make it because I ...need more bags?  The tutorial is pretty fabulous.  Thanks to my practice making the Aeroplane bag from Sew Sweetness I had better success with sewing a zipper in this way, and added an interior zippered pocket.

I used two prints from Pat Bravo's Carnaby St collection, Go Go London in Powdery for the exterior  and Psychedelia in Gold for the lining.  I also used Essex linen in Ivory for the exterior and handle.  The only real problem I had is that I SUCK at attaching handles without ending up with lots of extra sewing.  I don't know how people make them look so neat and tidy, and maybe I wouldn't be so aware of it if I hadn't used pink aurifil for it ;)

This was a fun bag to make, and I'm going to make another too. I actually used enough batting and interfacing so that is stands up and holds its shape, I guess there is a first time for everything! 

Linking up to SewJo Saturday at My Go-Go Life. 

Gifty Lap Quilts

A few months ago I decided to make lap quilts for three lovely children of my acquaintance for Christmas.   I've figured out why making things without patterns is a bad idea!  I don't particularly love any of them, but I am happy to say they are done ;)  I also get to say that all three of these were made at least partially with fabric I won, which made it less risky if they didn't turn out.

The first was made mostly with a pretty Kona Cotton Bundle from Canton Village Quilt Works that I was lucky enough to win from Alyssa at Pile O' Fabric.

It really ended up looking like I think it's the 70's still.  No idea what a 12 year old is going to think of that, but I won't worry about it, there are two dogs that can use any of these if the kids don't like them!  Her favorite color is pink but I still think I went overboard.  It's not quite as bright as the picture implies, but it's sure...pink.

The second was made with a combination of Kona solids and some Robotic fom Birch Organics given away by Fabricworm through Sewcanshe.  I went with the sexist slant of boys like robots (and his Dad said he'd like the robot and sciencey prints, which makes it slightly less sexist?  I know his daughters are just as interested in science as anybody).   It's my favorite of the three, maybe because it's the least busy.

 

 

 

 

 The last one had a good amount of Monaluna's Fox Hollow organics that I won from Moona Fabrics through a giveaway from Maureen Cracknell last year,.  This was a hard one, I decided to make it around the Fairy Tale Castle pattern I tested for Blossom Heart Quilts.  I made side A too busy, had to cut it apart and simplify it.  Side B was mostly a gathering of 12.5" blocks.  When I got "done" I realized it was way too small and had to add on, and now the 7 year old has the largest quilt.

When I started the quilt her favorite color was purple, but as of last night it was pink, sigh! She has surprising taste in fabric, picked out the prints for this ball I made and didn't choose the prints I thought a young girl would.  I'm still banking on her standards being lax if there are animals involved though, and hope she will just start singing about foxes and what they say.

I'd just done straight stitching on the first two quilts, after it taking less than an hour to stipple this one, I'm wishing I'd done that for all of them, it was actually easier than all the repositioning.

OK, long post, big pictures, wish I'd gotten outdoor photos, and glad they are done so I can get back to the other holiday sewing projects I have!