a quilter's best friend...

Quilters, you will know this, when your iron is in danger of dying you start to panic! at least that is what I did.

I've had this Sunbeam Steam Master (model 4228) for about 5 years and used it heavily during that time. It actually did break a year or so ago (the cord at the base became loose and wires weren't connecting) but my super hubby fixed it. It has been a great iron! I'll be honest, I didn't treat it the best either. I always left water in the tank and only used tap water (distilled is always recommended). But aside from a bit of drippiness now and then I was very happy with the steam it made and the heat it produced. But sadly, we all know that irons don't last forever...

My son was kind enough to label it "shut down" for me.

So last month I started researching irons. Luckily, my Sunbeam was still working but I didn't want to take the chance of being without and iron (because no iron, no quilting!).
What I concluded is that picking an iron is basically a crapshoot. It's hit or miss! There are good and bad reviews for every iron out there (if you've ever shopped for irons on Amazon and read the reviews you'll know what I'm talking about.

I settled on a Reliable Velocity V50 and ordered it from Aamzon.
I'll be honest. This thing is really different from my other iron. It has a little motor that produces continuous steam and it makes a loud humming sound when you have it on (kind of unnerving at first). The good part is that you can turn the steam off and on at the easy touch of a button. So I just turn the steam on when I'm actually ironing something and then turn it off when I set the iron back down. And this sucker gets nice and hot too!

I've been using it for almost a month now and at first I didn't like it but after a short while I started getting used to it because this thing really works great!
When you iron a seam, it stays ironed FLAT! Case in point:
The picture is not as impressive as in real life but that center seam is so flat and crisp! It's awesome.

A little warning though, the steam it produces is some serious steam! watch those fingers, ouch! Oh and, I'm trying my best to treat this iron well so I'm using only distilled water. This thing is a water hog! It goes through a TON of water to make all that steam. But for me, the most important thing is that it irons seams nice and flat. So, with that, I'm really happy with it!

this week

Well I seem to be in a bit of a blogging slump. Sewing is happening though!
I've got some cell phone pics of what I've been working on this week.

Mr. Scotty Dog came together surprisingly quick! A birthday gift for my niece. Free pattern from Denyse Schmidt.


After some deliberation and calculations I've decided to make both a Vintage Nine-Patch quilt and a Bowtie quilt with my Hadley fabrics. I'm going to make both quilts a smallish lap size and with a few additional fabrics it should be no problem.
These vintage nine patch blocks are small for me (6" finshed) and I was hoping there was going to be some quick method of sewing them up but no such luck. These could be time consuming but I think the result will be worth it.

I'm going with the 7" finished blocks for the bowties. These are pretty fun to make!


And today I'm going to finish the back and baste up this Double Plus quilt for a customer. The day is slipping by so I'd better hop to it!

scrap bustin'

Now that I think of it, I can only think of one quilt I've made using only scraps (+ white background), this Baby Butterflies quilt. Sad isn't it? I guess I did use a lot of scraps in my Native Quilt too. Well, I really do love scrappy quilts and I've noticed a lot of quilts that I bookmark or favorite are scrappy. But I have to admit the reason I don't make them very often is I feel they take a lot of time.

My scrap bins are totally full though! so much so that I've started using a cardboard box to throw scraps in under my sewing table. My scraps are fairly small, anything that is remotely foldable I keep on my fabric shelf. I have these 4 Ikea bins that hold all my scraps in the closet. From top to bottom I organize by color: neutrals/low volume, blues/purples, reds/oranges and greens/yellows.

So along the same lines as my Baby Butterflies quilt I've started a quilt to hopefully use some of those scraps up. I think I'm going to go with a layout inspired by this one.

I'm using 7" squares and just randomly piecing scraps to two opposite corners.
I hope it uses up a lot of scraps!

new machine!

So...yeah, this just happened.


A couple of months ago I started doing a little research on machines. I needed to save up a little so I've just been biding my time but yesterday I started reading lots of reviews on different machines again.
Right now, I use a Janome MC6500 (my mom gave it to me about 5 years ago) but use it only for free-motion quilting because that's how I have it set up (the tension is not easy to get right!). I use a Janome Magnolia 7330 for piecing and any other type of sewing. I've been dissatisfied with the stitch quality of my FMQ and a few annoying problems it's had with the top thread getting caught on the lowered feed dogs while FMQ. I found others online that had this same problem and they used a piece of masking tape over the feed dogs to solve the problem. Sure enough, ever since I have used the masking tape I have not had the problem but still, it's a pain to have to do that on such an expensive machine.

Anyway, I've had it narrowed down to a Janome MC8900 or a Juki TL-2010Q. Several features on the Janome really appealed to me, like their Acufeed system and 11" of harp space. However, when it comes to computers I'm not a geek and am super intimidated to learn all the ins and outs (heck! I've never really figured out my 6500) nor do I need any fancy stitches. Honestly though I probably would have gone with the Janome if I'd had the extra cash for it.
So with the price being almost a third of the Janome and after seeing how pleased so many Juki owners are with their 2010s I decided to go for it. It's a straight stitch only machine but that's what I mainly do - straight stitch and FMQ, plus I have my little Janome still for zigzag or other things like that. This morning I drove about 40 minutes to a local store that had one in stock (for less than the best online price I saw too!). I'm really excited to get to know this new machine!

Well, I'll let y'all know what I think after a while.

In progress today...

Happy Thursday!
Today I'm quilting...

...and planning my next project (always the fun part!). I think I've settled on these colors with a background of Confetti Dots.

What are you up to today?