It's Here!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Book 2 has arrived!

I have book 2 of the Quilter's Academy series at last!!!!!!!  It's exciting to flick through to see what's coming up.  There are lots of projects - 14 in all - including the Sampler, the alternatives and the Final.

Signed by Harriet & Carrie

I can't wait to get started.  When Harriet says it's a skill building course in quiltmaking, she really means it.  Not only are there instructions on making the quilts, the book also covers everything surrounding that - sewing machines and sewing spaces, fabrics, tools, needles & threads, drafting, fabric calculations and loads more.  There really is so much more to making a quilt than sewing patches together!  These lessons continue on from the basics learned in book 1 and set the foundations for stitching the more complex patterns coming up in future books.

Sadly, I'm going to have to wait a bit longer to get started on the 2nd book.  I still have 3 1/2 tops to turn into quilts, and currently my sewing space consists of a pile of boxes sitting in the middle of the floor in my new house.

A DAY OF GOODIES

The same day my new book arrived, so did my new-to-me sewing machine.  Yes, the Bernina 830 Record finally showed up. It seemed the E-Bay seller decided she didn't get enough money for it and wanted to re-list and it took a while before it finally made it to the post.

I have a new respect for Bernina's - the packaging was very poor but the machine managed to survive and arrived in one piece.  It runs well, but after only a short line of stitching I could hear it screaming for oil (which of course is packed in a box) so I had to be content with reading the manual and playing with the knobs.  The machine is pretty dirty too, but instead of cleaning and oiling it myself, I'm going to take it to my local dealer and have a full service done.  This should keep her running for another 40 odd years!

 

Bernina feet are a mystery to me, but I found a chart which lists all the feet for this machine - I have 13 in all, Bernina branded, generic and a couple which I suspect are for a different machine, as the box also included bobbin cases and plates which don't fit.  These are the genuine Bernina feet included :

000 - Zigzag

285 - Darning

053 - Teflon Straight Stitch

016 - Gathering Zigzag Wide

030 - Pintuck 3 Groove

007 - Tailor Tack

470 - Overlock

No walking foot, buttonhole foot or zipper foot (although I'm pretty sure the one of the generics is a zipper foot).  Honestly, I only had about half an hour to explore the machine, before packing it up so I know very little about it at this point, except that it works.

In the top picture you can see the current quilt I'm working on and I'm still quite a way from finishing.  A tip from me - don't try to sew a grid around a pattern without marking!  All the straight grids I've done so far, I've eyeballed, which isn't difficult when working with 2 inch or 1 inch squares.  With this one I managed to get the grid out of whack, but battled on anyway, which of course made the situation worse.  After about a week's work I finally finished one half of the diagonal grid.  It's not lined up properly and the angles are all over the place.  I pretty much decided not to do the other half of the grid (to make the diagonal lines into diagonal squares) and started on the borders instead.  After quilting 2 designs, I realised it wasn't a quilting day, put it aside and there it remains. 

I'm going to be offline for a little while until after the move is complete and everything has been set up.  I've invited some ladies over to help me set up my sewing space, hopefully sometime next week.  I'm itching to get back to it - I'm so over this moving house business.