knitting kitchen

I bought a new sewing machine last week. It was a difficult decision to make. I’ve had my sewing machine since 1981 and thousands of yards of fabric have passed over those feed dogs. I’d begun to notice that the percentage of profane words that pass my lips increases sharply whenever the sewing machine comes out.

It never used to be this way.

My stepmother’s sewing machine, the Singer I learned to sew on back in the 1970’s is older than I am. Straight stitch, zig zag, forwards and in reverse…that’s what you got out of her sewing machine. I really thought I was stylin’ when I bought my Singer in 1981. It had a buttonhole stitch and a blind-hem stitch! It’s solid metal and it rocked. Something funky began to happen with the tension which frequently made the bobbin loop up behind the sewing and then jam the machine.

I’d had enough.

I looked at Berninas, Husquvarnas, and Janomes. I settled on the Janome 3500. The only thing I have to say about using this machine is that it is a miracle that I’d ever produced anything with the Singer. Seriously.

I’m already late for work, so I’ll let the pictures spill their thousand words.

The book, The Modern Quilt Workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, is incredible. I’d noticed their quilts in some of my magazines before and finally gave in to their inspiration. I loved the pattern “Plain Spoken Quilt”, named for it’s use of solid colored fabrics. For my first outing with Ms. Janome, I thought a quilt might be just the thing. I used fabric from my stash which was not solid, but all printed. As a result, the effect of the quilt pattern is so different. It says way too much. That’s okay. It might make up for my current paucity of usable words (I’ve been too exhausted to use words lately). Therefore, I’ve named this quilt my Verbose Quilt.

Katze gave it the cat test and approved. I’ll be quilting it this weekend I hope, just after Mark and I install our new kitchen sink and faucet (*squeeee!).

And next up? Maybe something a little more retro.