Call For Back Up

I adore my Bernina 1260. Adore probably isn't a strong enough word to express my feelings, but it will have to do. Before purchasing "her" used at a machine store, I used VERY cheap machines. I also hated quilting. No matter how hard I tried my quilting would be awful. I honestly thought I would never be a quilter. A piecer, yes. A surface designer, yes. But quilter?

Then I followed my heart and intuition and picked up my 1260 at an incredibly reasonable price, and I've been doing the quilting on my pieces since that day. I love quilting on that machine so much, that I often will start with a whole cloth hand dyed piece just to get to the quilting faster.

This being said, you can grasp how I felt on Saturday, when I was quilting away, then went to change to a stitch I've never used, only to have my machine stop working. That's right, I would hit the pedal, see the thread take up move up and down, hear the motor wind, but the needle would not move up and down. My heart broke. Oh, and I panicked.

I have an art crawl coming up quickly, and I do not have a back up machine. I had my previous machine still, but when I sat down again and tried (after much more quilting experience) to get it quilting and free motioning, I could not get it to do it. It was awful. I felt sick. I felt lost. I learned a very valuable lesson. I need a real back up machine.

Once I started to think about (and I had time all afternoon and evening Saturday, as well as all day Sunday), I realized that other artists have back ups. Painters don't have just one paint brush after all!
Monday morning I drove my poor baby to the "Dr's" (i.e. local quilt shop), she was diagnosed with what was likely wrong - and that it might take awhile! Tracy at Make It Sew was incredibly kind enough to offer me a personal machine of hers as a loaner - which I thanked her for but decided against (Can you imagine if you were using someone else's machine when it broke?) It was a white Bernette.

I started to look around the shop, and saw several Bernette models on one side of the store. I asked Tracy if any of them would free motion quilt. Turns out they can indeed! I tried a couple but ultimately decided on the Bernette 46 - it quilted beautifully for me and was a front loading bobbin (this is very important to me!) These machines are pretty affordable, and seem solidly built. She makes a lovely purr as she free motions! As you can see, there are not a ton of stitches, but honestly I'm happy about that! I don't use too many, and it leaves less to go wrong!

I am so happy to have a good back up now, and happy to say that since yesterday morning when I brought her home, I have already quilted three and a half of my pieces!

If you're a full time fiber/quilt artist who uses a machine I really suggest trying to have a solid and reliable back up machine. Being without a tool necessary to your craft is not a good feeling!

Ironically it reminds me of a kitchen set I saw while dishwasher shopping this past weekend as well!

Patching Things Up

I recently had house guests who are friends close enough to us we consider them family. They travel around the country in their RV, so we don't see them nearly as frequently. During their visit, they told me that the quilt I had given them, was wearing out in some areas. They asked if I could try and fix it while they were here.

As you can see, the wearing was fairly extensive. I was surprised because it felt like I had just given it to them not long ago. Upon finding the label however I realized that I had given it to them back in 1999!

Suffice it to say, I did not have any of the fabrics anymore, so I would have to just pick a fabric that at least matched the quilt. You can see there is also wear in the white area too.

I picked this paisley blue to repair the outer border area. I measured the rectangular area I was replacing, and added a half inch to each side. Then I pressed the half inch seam allowance under on all sides.

The easiest way to fix it I decided, was to use an applique patch method, and applique the patches over frayed areas. For the border piece, I extended the new piece out into the binding.


I realized just how loved this quilt is, when I saw the binding! I used the folding binding method, so there are two layers to the binding on each side. It's a good thing too, because on this quilt nearly the entire outer layer of the binding has worn away. Most of the binding you can see now, is actually the wrong side of the binding fabric!

I had help through the entire process. Their furry friend BJ supervised the process. You can see here that he's a real slave driver! 

Of course, he was also in charge of quality control. Laying on it was no doubt a way to be sure that it had still retained its "comfyness."

I admit that I did cheat a little when it came to repairing the white half square triangles. Rather than try to applique a triangle shape in, I used wonder under and fused half square triangles into place.

Then I took it to my domestic machine, a Bernina 1260, and quilted the areas I had just repaired.

I think it turned out looking pretty good, despite the fact that the blues were a bit different.

I also got the opportunity to see it back where it belonged in the RV! Though, I will be working on a new quilt for them this summer, as the repairs I did were minimal, and many of the other fabrics are very close to wearing through also. Not too bad though, for a quilt made in 1999. Especially considering the fact that they have used it every single day since I gave it to them! 

I can't wait to get started on their new quilt!