Knee lifts & noodles

Ever think the knee lift on your sewing machine felt uncomfortable against your leg?  I mentioned to my husband that while the knee lift was wonderful, it hurt the side of my leg as I wear shorts most of the time and that plastic handle was not comfortable against my skin.

He came up with a solution – pad the handle!

He cut a section from one of those noodles that you use in the pool and poked a knife down the middle, then slipped the purple noodle onto the handle.

I made it even more comfy by slipping a cotton footie (short sock) over the noodle.

It doesn’t look all that attractive, but boy oh boy, does it make a world of difference when I use that knee lift.

Isn’t it always the little things that make life easier?

Enjoying the new machine

It was a breeze quilting on a small piece that will be made into a bag. Love that AccuFeed on the Janome 6600p. No more clunky noise as with a walking foot. In combination with the knee lift, the AccuFeed made quilting on the small piece easy. The small piece wasn’t big enough to test out the capabilities of the wide arm area.

The arm area is soooo wide, I can keep my small pincushion nearby as I sew.

This machine has a presser foot lifter that lifts the foot to a normal height and then you can lift it higher than normal – an “extra lift” position. That came in mighty handy when I was sewing on a zipper. When I came to the zipper tab, I did not have to finagle around the zipper tab to slide it into a different position. I was very happy with that.

Quilt Magazines in Spanish?

Someone emailed me saying that her daughter is studying in Costa Rica and the local women love quilting and yearn for American Quilting Magazines but do not read English. 

Does anyone out there in the Land of Blog know of a Quilt Magazine for Spanish speaking/reading quilters?

Stimulating the economy

Sometimes you have to make a decision – repair or replace.Yesterday was replacement day!

I got me a new sewing machine!

It’s a Janome MC6600 Professional. Look at all that space in the arm area to push the quilt through. My old Janome (9000) had 7” of arm space. This new one has 9”. That 2” makes a huge difference.

Here’s a page with all the specs of the machine -
http://sunshinesewing.com/janome/6600.html I’ve bought machines from Sunshine Sewing Company for years now. I can remember buying my first embroidery machine, a Janome 8000, from Sunshine in 1993. That was when it was owned by someone else and before it had all the fabric that it has now. Faye (owner for last 12 years) has done a great job of seeing that the store is brimming with all the latest fabrics. They also have an online store.

The 6600 runs so smoothly and sounds so good as it hums along. It is a “professional” machine which means it is built “strong like bull”.

I’ve had 2 embroidery machines and truth be told, the big reason I got the 2nd embroidery machine was to get the knee lift. I really haven’t found much need for embroidery in recent years and never had the type of embroidery machine that connects to the computer.

I’m a quilter. And sometimes sewist. The 6600 is not an embroidery machine. It does have a lot of built in stitches. And it has the knee lift. I truly love my knee lift when doing some kinds of quilting and appliqué work. This machine is geared towards a quilter.

Faye said she likes to use the “on – off button” instead of the foot control when free motion quilting. I’m going to have to give that a try.

Just got it set up and familiar with it yesterday. Haven’t as yet tried the AcuFeed which is a built in walking foot. That’s a “job” for today!

Royal Pains & Army Wives

Tom Jicha of the Sun-Sentinel in Ft. Lauderdale is a very harsh critic.  So, when he wrote such a glowing review Thursday morning about the “Royal Pains” premiere (USA network), I just had to watch.

It’s on here at 10pm, so I recorded Thursday’s show to watch on Friday evening.  DH watched it with me and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.  Oh, those super-rich people in the Hamptons with all their excesses & false values, I liked seeing them in action!

There has to be some truth to their behavior as portrayed in the premiere episode.  If there isn’t, I don’t care – storyline is good, the characters are fun, especially the “concierge doctor’s” brother.  What a hoot he is.

If there are going to be more interesting characters in upcoming shows as there were in the first show, “Royal Pains” will have me as a regular viewer!  As it is now, I look forward to next Thursday’s show. 

New season of “Army Wives” is back again on this coming Sunday.  I’ve missed it. 

Oh, what fun viewing I will be having this summer.

Stuck on green & Joann coupons

Lately, I have been coming home with green fabrics.

Today’s purchase included green zippers.  To be made into a gift.  Those greens go together much nicer than they look in the photo.

Here’s a Feathered Star in progress --

Greens on a neutral background.

I’m not the only one – a fellow shopper had a couple of greens.  The gal who cut my fabrics said she’s into greens, too.

I haven’t been at my sewing machine for a while.  Been busy with a website re-design.  And now, my sewing machine is in the shop for regular maintenance.  Isn’t that always the way?

Oh, and Joann coupons – did you know that you can turn in more than one Joann coupon (like the 40% off ones) at a time?  As long as the coupons are not the “same”.  They may all say “40% off”, but you have to get them from different circulars and/or online.

Today I turned in 3 Joann “40% off of one regular priced item” coupons.  One from a circular that was mailed to my house, one printed from their website and one from a circular I got in the store.

A helpful clerk from Joann’s turned me on to that money-saving tip.