October 2007

From a beautiful little butterfly and the most adorable caterpillar ever.

Ok, not really.

It’s really just an aftermarket thread guide for the Hinterberg Voyager 17. You think for as much as they charge for the machine this wouldn’t be necessary. The recommended glue is hot glue. It doesn’t work very well since it has come off twice. Must find some stronger glue.

… and both kids slept for 5 minutes so I could get some quilting practice in with the new Hinterberg Voyager 17. Maeve brought home a lovely bug from school and it’s making the rounds here leaving little time for sewing the past couple days.

Eek! I love this thing. Now to find some more interesting colors of thread to run through it.

I might do a real quilt tomorrow instead of clearance sheets from Target.

Yay!

First, the reason why this machine was necessary:

That would be a 6″ throat on the Pfaff 2134 vs. 17″ throat on the Hinterberg Voyager 17. Beautious.

And then this:

Ohmygoodnes. So pretty. So lovely. So friggin’ huge! But I guess that is the point. Now to attach the leaders, clean up the rest of the room, oh, and figure out how to use it!

So I sat down the other day and made myself a Christmas listing schedule. It’s rather ambitious but I think I can tackle it. My first listing to go up was a beautiful quilt that is very (very) similar to the wedding quilt I made with the same Shangri-la fabrics.

So tonight I’m sitting in front of the computer staring at the Etsy listing screen trying to figure out how to describe this quilt. I had no words so the listing ended up being a little silly.

I’ve been itching to make something with reproduction fabrics. Picked up a bunch and decided on a Pineapple block. The colors are not set in a traditional layout but my quilts tend to not be traditional anyways.

It’s so soft. So wonderful. I can’t wait to envelope it in all that fabric loveliness.

Oh, it’s batting by the way. Just in case you haven’t dissected a quilt lately.

Ah yes, more Dick and Jane loveliness now up on Etsy.

Only Sean will know the correct tone of voice for that title.

Yup, finally tried my hand at a bag. This one is for sale on Etsy. Now to take the plunge and try a bigger size.

Even a spiffy pocket/divider!

This one came out exactly like I wanted it to.

Strips of a million Moda Sanctuary patterns, pieced together in different widths, and then into different lengths, then into squares on an angle and then finally into a quilt.

Throw in some dense quilting, a quick whirl though the washer and you have puckery patchwork perfection.

… of pretty variegated swirlies. The binding still needs to be done so no big pictures yet. Patience, grasshopper.

The Triangle-area Etsians met this morning at CupAJoe in Raleigh. Good talk, good fun and I now know there are some people in Etsy forums that annoy other people too. I can’t wait until next time ladies!

Feel free to comment with your name, Etsy shop name and where you are in the picture because I’m sitting here with a stack of business cards trying to figure out who is who. I need to know who it was that mentioned the show in Johnston County.

Gasp.

Shock.

Don’t get too worried. Now I’m thinking a Hinterberg Voyager 17. Or one of the other 8 million mid-arm machines I’ve learned about over the past 2 days.

So just an update for those who find this post in Google searches… I bought the Hinterberg.  And then returned it.  It was horrible.  I now have the Viking Mega Quilter and love it.

It was on the schedule to be finished tomorrow along with some shoes for Jeri (hi Jeri!).  CEO Liam Cier has vetoed that idea.

“I don’t think so Mom.  We’re playing with rattles tomorrow.”

It was lurking in the sewing machine in my last post, but the Shangri-la wedding quilt is progressing! I just need to flip over the binding and sew it and it will be all done (or all dooney as Miss Maeve would say).

Will you please come visit me?

So any quilter knows how much fun it is to shove a huge quilt through their normal sewing machine. You have to make sure you don’t quilt any wrinkles or folds into it … your free motion stitches stay smooth and equal in length … your quilting stays an even density even though you can only see about 5 square inches at a time … shall I continue? Probably not since I am probably sounding a wee bit whiney.

Does this look familiar to anyone?

Luckily, my handy dandy Machingers make this part of the process a little more pleasant, but it’s still tough and hard on the back and shoulders.

So the solution to this is to send every quilt to someone with a long arm machine or buy something bigger myself. Of course being the sewing machine lover that I am, I want my own. Not a super fancy computer driven one, just something simple that has a bigger machine and rollers so I don’t have to baste.

I hear angels singing.

Isn’t she beautiful? Rollers… a table that expands to 120″… it even has storage underneath!! What sew-er couldn’t use more storage? She is the Pfaff Grand Quilter with a Next Generation Quilt Frame. Absolutely beautiful. Problem is she costs a lot more than I currently have.

Moneytree?

Will you please come visit me?