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Baby Quilt

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I finally made a quilt — I think it’s been a good 5 years or so since I last made quilts. I think I started making more clothing during the pandemic and pouches.  I was frustrated with the free motion quilting but I am pleased as punch with how this turned out!  It was for a friend who just had a baby boy!! So happy for her and her spouse.  He is so cute.  I used the firefly collection I believe from Sarah Watts. I even did the binding with that.  The grey is a speckled with gold flecks and that is a Rashida Coleman Hale fabric. I love it so much. It’s such yummy fabric so I am happy I found it.  I got most of the fabric from The Quilt Shop, a lovely quilting fabric company here in Australia.  

I didn’t use a lot of blender fabrics for one of the koalas but I still think it turned out really nice.  The back of the fabric is the same to the front.  

I have been trying to fix up this website so I have been really slow to post as I need to clean up to make this presentable. 

Pattern is from Elizabeth Hartman.  I love her patterns.  They are awesome. I am going to do the rabbit one next for my cousin and his family. 

Sewing Machine Research

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I have a couple of boxes that were missing from the move and things here and there seem to be missing.  One of my boxes that arrived was my beloved sewing machine.  It was destroyed:

I am sharing a small picture because it’ s just ugly. Insurance covered a little of it and I saved up enough to get a new one.  I mostly likely was going to get a Bernina but I decided to see if I would need something else.  

Buying a sewing machine is an investment and you need to figure out the best sewing machines for your needs.  When I first got interested in sewing many many years ago, I started out with something basic:

  • mechanical
  • 13 stitches

That’s it.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to sew.  I love being crafty and I thought little pouches, maybe a simple tote and quilting. Also repairing clothes.  I wasn’t really interested in making clothes at that point but I wanted the option as it had a zig zag stitch.  I chose a basic one and only if I really got into it, I would upgrade my machine.  

I really wanted something high quality so my budget was between 240-500 at that time.  I ended up with a Husqvarna Viking which is similar to the Emerald:

This was in the early 2000 and this was as basic as it got. I chose Husqvarna Viking because it solidly built and at the time, this was still built in Sweden.  

I really did sew a lot and made bags, pouches, repaired and mended clothes.  I really started getting into more complicated quilting at that time so I wanted to work my way up to a computerized machine.  

I wanted to stick with a Husqvarna Viking as it was intuitive to me.  This one had a ton more stitches and I was starting to get into embroidery. They had these machines with embroidery cards which acted like. disk that you place into the machine:

It lasted me for over 20 years.  I moved it from Toronto back to Vancouver.  Then the machine just wore out and I looked into a new one. 

I wanted an embroidery machine as I thought I would really enjoy it and I ended up with the Janome Skyline:

I believe I had the S7 with the embroidery arm.  It was really nice machine.  Solidly built and I made stuffed animals and all kinds of embroidery items for the kids birthday parties included emoji keychains or flare for kids backpacks.  It was great fun to have all those beautiful stitches to personalise Christmas stockings and pouches. 

However, I really felt it was too much machine for me — I was starting to make clothes and there wasn’t a real reason to have an embroidery machine.  I have always looked at Bernina machines with heart eyes and wanted it but just felt out of reach because if I wanted an equivalent, it was really not justifiable as I had a nice working machine. 

Bernina came out with the 4 series which was really reasonable and so I sold my Janome back to the dealer and bought a Bernina 475:

Loved it.  I think I felt relief by having a simple machine.  It was great.  I wasn’t interested in the 7 series because it was just too much of a tank and I wouldn’t have the time to get into all the bells and the whistles. 

A Sewing Expo in Seattle had a great deal on the QE570 which is the machine you see destroyed so I ended up upgrading to that machine as it had a larger throat space for the bigger quilts I was making.  

I even got a overlocker/serger as well as I was making a lot more clothes during the pandemic. 

All this to say is that I reviewed the Bernina assortment again just to see if anything had changed in my mind.  The Kaffe Fassett 4 series are lovely and the 7 series are still too tanky for me.  I don’t need such a big machine to lug around.  I was thinking about the 590 but budget wise, I decided to stick to the 570QE.  I like the larger stitches, the walking foot and the stitch regulator.  If I decided I want to go embroidery, I can do that but given how much time I have (between full time work, the family and building my website). I think I’ll start with just what I had my heart eyes for. 

I can’t wait to pick it up!  Let me know if you ever need advice choosing a machine because I really like to figure out what is the best machine for someone’s needs.  

Icons

Draw: Icons

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I am trying to draw a little every day.  It hasn’t been consistent yet.  I think I need to find that balance and also organize and clean my space.  I really like Sarah Watt’s sketchbook squad.  She has a number of course I have taken, the first being the surface pattern design as I have a dream to design my own fabric but right now time is getting the best of me.  I think I am trying to just do a little bit at a time and not stress about perfection.  I was always a bit fan of her fabrics starting at Cotton + Steel and now Ruby Star Society and I noticed that whenever I gravitate towards a pattern — it was always hers! She is a great teacher, so supportive and I think you will learn a lot about drawing from her. Also her colour combos are killer.  

Through her classes, I discovered Mike Lowery.  You may have heard of some of his books:  

He has a really lovely illustration style that I gravitated towards.  He was a guest speaker for Sarah when I was taking her design course and he has this great dad joke sense of humour that I took to so I felt at ease to take his courses as well.  I feel like a fraud at times with my drawing because I felt like mine was so kindergarten but I think they were both just very encouraging to just draw and that you need to keep drawing every day.  

Check out his courses as well, they are great.  Anyways — this is part of his “Getting Paid to Draw” course where he assigned drawing icons.  So I took just every day objects that were in the house and around my work desk and illustrated it.  I was limited with the supplies with a a markets, pencil crayons as my boxes were still in storage and I couldn’t access it easily.  

I really enjoyed drawing this assignment.  Drawing has become a really nice stress reliever during the pandemic and from work.  Since my sewing machine was smashed in the move, this has been a relief.

Have I mentioned USPS lost my box of fabrics?  So sad.  I collected and picked all this fabric for nothing.  Also my good scissors is also gone. Sigh..

Also for those who want to know here are the supplies I use:

  •  Rendr sketchbook. They are really great for copic markers, not so great for watercolour.  
  • Micron pens (sakura) for outlining
  • Caran D’ache pencil crayons.  Love the feel and colours. 
  • Faber Castell watercolour pencils.  Only because I have them handy.  These are a little harder to use than the Caran D’ache