Sewing Machine on the Sideline

When I get a picture or video of this, I will add it to this post.

I am watching the American football game between Alabama University and University of Auburn. Which is something that just about shuts the state of Alabama down for the duration of the game.

So, while playing in the Iron Bowl, a player from UA ripped his jersey. People on his team strip him of the shirt, bring out the sewing machine, repair the shirt, redress the player, and send him back on the field to play.

There is a sewing machine being used live on TV during a football game. AND it is being used by a man! Got to love a man who can sew!

Edit: sewing machine on sideline
more sewing
again

Berninja

Recap: my machine did not work well. I took it in for maintenance. It worked for about a month before returning to the unwanted stiches. I did not take it back for more maintenance/work.

So, what did I do when my machine would not work well enough? I bought a new machine.

I thought about a new machine but did not plan on actually getting a new machine. I just made my machine do what it could do.

Then one day, I was reading the local yard sale page on Facebook. There was a young lady selling five quilt books for $5 a piece or $20 for all five. They were new books, and a couple were books that I have been wanting but not wanting to spend the money right now. So, I met with her and bought the books. In the process of talking to her about quilting, she told me that she pieces and quilts by hand and that she had a machine for sale that she has also placed on the yard sale page. I briefly asked her about the machine and took my books home to soak in my find.

The problem was that the machine was still in my mind and my machine was so making me mad. I looked up the post and sent her a few messages. She told me that she had it for about 18 months and did not use it for anything other than piecing a few quilt backs, which she could do by hand or at her mother's.

I spoke with my husband, who told me that if I thought it was a good deal and I wanted it to purchase it from her.

I arranged for a meeting and bought it. It is a Bernina B330. It was a steal for the price she wanted and it being such great shape! The throat is a little smaller than I wanted, but in all other aspects it is PERFECT! She also gave me a machine carrier!

My husband has affectionately named it the "Berninja," and I have been playing with it.

I found a local Bernina store and bought a few more feet for it and a shiny new case to put those feet and other accessories. I also was able to have, someone who knew a lot more about it, show me how do other things besides straight stitching.

So, my little Berninja and I will be sewing/finishing a lot of things soon. Stay tuned; sewing stuff will be coming soon. I am so excited!

Also, I will have pictures soon. I am just so busy sewing.

Quiet

I know one of the last posts I made was to say that my machine was back and I would be going through a lot of sewing, so I thought I would explain.

I took my machine in to be repaired because I could not do free-motion quilting. It bothered me a lot that I could not quilt like I wanted. I put a couple of quilts to the side because I could not FMQ on them without the thread fraying or snapping. It was so bad that it would do this after three to five stitches. That is NOT fun at all. Think of all of the knots to bury. My machine was fine with straight-line quilting but not much more.

So, I took it mostly to fix this problem. I brought it home and put it to work. Well, it did not last  long before it started doing the exact same thing that it was before. I was very upset.

I have still not taken it back to be worked on, but I have some news that I will be sharing before long.

T-Shirt Finish-Army Strong

Happy Veterans Day!

 

Here in the states it is Veterans Day. It is a day that we remember and honor our veterans. In honor of Veterans Day I always thank my mom. She is my favorite veteran.

 

I have decided to name this quilt Army Strong. As previously stated this is a quilt for a veteran. Many of the shirts are from when she was in the army.

 

 

These are not the most amazing pictures. My husband snapped them quickly for me in the setting sunlight just before I headed off to make my delivery. I did not get a close up of much of the quilting, but some of my favorite is the stars underneath the flag and the bowling balls under the bowling shirt.

 

 

Here is one of me peeking over the top.

And the best shot of the back.

I am very happy to say that the recipient LOVED it. She was so happy when I got it to her. I love it when people love quilts.

T-shirt Quilting

 

Remember when I was working on this quilt, and I said I just had enough green thread to finish the quilt? Well, I used the very last of it to quilt this block. Just look at how little is left.

This picture still has the marks before I washed them off, but don't you think that looks good for using a walking foot and not doing it free motion? I wish I was able to do it free motion. A little more about that coming soon.

 

This is the backing fabric and the binding fabric. This will have to do as a close up of both since I did not get a good shot of either before sending it off to it new home.



This quilt was made for a veteran who was an air traffic controller. The fabric has several different aircrafts. If you notice at the very top, there is an airplane dropping parachutes. I thought it was a great fabric for the theme. Also, how can you pass up red and white stripes for binding fabric.

T-Shirt Layout

After getting the T-shirts ready to sew, I tried several layouts. I wanted to have a colored square in each corner, the other colored ones in the center, to keep a front and back together, and cut as little as possible.

This is how I started. I knew that I would have a block that was pieced together using the pocket prints and prints on two sleeves. I was hoping that I could fit everything together before making this block so that I knew what size to cut the squares and what size to make the block.

 

 I rearranged and rearranged until I decided to move the other blue one and the green one. This arrangement gave me the best size without cutting to much. It was almost perfect in rows from side to side. The blocks were not all the same size in the rows so I trimmed them to be the same height. Mostly I cut from the bottom since there was empty space at the bottom of each block until they were the same height.



 

 

It gave me the size I needed for the final pieced block, which I whipped up. I also had four more squares to use and thought that the green block had the most space at he bottom and had a little unwanted look on it. This left the best place to piece the rest of the blocks.

 

Once I had it all lined up, I began sewing the rows together.

 

Then I sewed the rows together and suddenly I had a quilt top finished.

 

For me this takes a little bit of time to get the T-shirts all lined up. T-shirts have different sized prints and make different sized blocks to fit together. It is a puzzle to fit them all together. It is always my hope to fit them together without cutting too much or adding filler.

 

I love making these quilts. They are always soft and show a person's life in fabric.