SEWING OLD SCHOOL

This week I decided to sell my Juki TL-98Q and my small Brother embroidery machine.  Sounds crazy cause I love that Juki but I had the chance on a used Bernina Artista with sewing and embroidery so I sold my 2 in order to buy it.  Kathy will give Martha (my juki) a good home.  She left on Saturday.  My Bernina doesn't arrive from CA until Friday so this week I am piecing old school.

I've never been a big fan of the fancy computerized machines but Bernina is a high quality brand so I'm upscaling.  While I wait for her to arrive I have been using the old Dressmaker (brand name) machine Jean found a couple of months ago at a yard sale.  Looks like brand new and has all the original cams.  $50.  I had't looked at it much cause I've been busy but it sews like brand new and runs smooth as butter.  They don't built this metal work horses anymore.

ALS #4

Just finished the binding on number 4 for the ALS challenge.  Still hoping I can finish 10 by the time i need to mail - July 15.  This one is all scraps.  I think I like the back better than the front.

ALS QUILT #3

Here is the third ALS donation quilt.  I pieced the backing again using pink and purple squares.  I like the pieced backing so much I'll probably do all the ALS quilts that way.

ALS #2

This is my second quilt for the ALS challenge.  I realized how expensive it could get for backing on all these so I decided to piece my backing.  The back is 8" squares colors similar to the front.

WOO HOO - ALS #1

Well it may seem like I'm slow going with a committment of 10 and a mailing deadline of July 15 but I have a couple of tops done aleady for ALS. I don't want to post them until I have them completely finished. So, I quilted this top over the weekend and finished the binding last night. Here is #1 in the box ready to ship.

NOTHING'S GETTING DONE

It's been a crazy week and a half. I've been working on my als quilts but the current one seems to be taking as long as the prior 5 took together. I have a shadow box on the machine to finish piecing but I'm taking a break to get a couple quilted. Seems like I got nothing done the last several days. I have Gaylene's Magic Tile along with 2 other quilts for her and 6 of my ALS quilts ready to quilt. With those I'll need to figure out the backing before I can mount them on the machine. Thinking I'll piece some large squares together and get a patchwork back as well on some of these. So, I'm going to start listing in my blog my thread preferences. It's funny how much difference there is in Connecting Threads, Isacord, Gutermann, etc. I piece with connecting threads brand and was quilting with it but lately the quality isn't as good and I get too much breakage. Also it just completely fills my machine with a LOT of lint. I'll post as I go along so I have a record of which ones I liked the best. Tonight I'm working on Gaylene's magic tile using Gutermann natural cotton in gold. Need to order more of that as it's one of my favorite threads. I have a lot of varigated polys I want to try as well.