Fabric and patterns galore

 

Quilt of Valor Foundation

 I longarmed a Quilt of Valor for the National Foundation last January and they sent a photo of the ceremony. It was awarded to Army Veteran Specialist Allan Gentry who served from 1974 to 1977. His duty stations were in Ft. Eustis VA and Schauenburg Germany as a truck driver. His quilt was awarded at the Delta Area Senior Center in Delta PA where he is a member. His wife was present along with many other Senior Center members to thank him for his service to our country.

Barn quilts

I've seen many barn quilts in my travels around Iowa and North Carolina.  I decided to put one on my house.  My husband did a great job of hanging it!  Do you have a barn quilt on your property? 

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

 What are you having fun doing this fine Sunday? I am longarming a quilt top that I made a year ago and I’m just now getting around to longarming it. On Monday it's going to be donated to a charity called Sleep in Heavenly Peace - NC, Durham so I better get off the computer and get busy! I finish the longarming today and will do the binding tomorrow.

Sleep in Heavenly Peace builds twin beds and donates them to children who have been sleeping on the floor.  It's a great way to give back to the community.  They have a nationwide building day on Sept. 14th in cooperation with Lowe's, who donates much of the wood used that day.  My quilt will be given to a deserving child on that day.

Under my needle today

 I've been busy this week, trying to catch up with my longarming schedule.  I'm a bit behind!  This is the quilt on my frame this afternoon, a king size made by a customer.  I have 8 more lined up and I'm having fun!

Artist in background

My view this Saturday morning

 

Juki DX-2000QVP sewing machine

I bought a new machine and thought I'd share a review.  If you want the features of the machines that cost thousands, you can find them in this machine and it was only $1,599!

 I've been sewing since I was 13, that's 50+ years and this machine has the most precise feed I have ever seen. It's the easiest and quickest machine to thread of any I've used. And the thread cutter is wonderful. Push a button, both threads are cut and you don't have to hold the thread when you begin sewing again.

 The operation is incredibly intuitive, especially considering how robust the features and options it has. The stitch quality is perfect, and the machine produces consistently well formed stitches. The foot hovers when you stop or pause sewing, a great feature for quilters like me.  You can also program the machine to turn this feature off if you need to.

You can program the foot control heel action to do what you want it to. I programed mine to sew a 1/2 stitch but you can program it to cut the thread, sew one complete stitch, raise or lower the foot and others I can't remember right now.

And, wow, this feature is fabulous!  By pressing the float button, you can sew with the presser foot slightly raised. By raising the presser foot to float you can sew fabrics without pushing layers or creating uneven seams. And you can sew thick layers without using the walking foot! This is effective when quilting and sewing appliques. The height of the presser foot can be set from 0 to 2.5 mm in increments of 0.1 mm.

The feed dogs function extremely well to move the fabric over seams and variable thicknesses. It makes beautiful button holes that are very easy to do, and perfectly sized by placing the button in the spring loaded holder in the buttonhole foot. Its buttonhole-making features are easy and produce the best buttonholes!

I've successfully sewed zippered pouches, 2 tote bags with recessed zipper, also a ByAnnie tote bag with front zipper pocket.  I'll use this machine mainly at quilting classes now.  It's a wonderful machine and I really should say that this would make a fabulous 'every day' machine, and it's a shame to only use it for travel!