What brand and model do you have?

I have a Singer 2638, which looks like this:

How long have you had it?

I have had this machine for well over five years; I've only started really using it recently, though. If I had known how much I was going to love sewing, I would have set it up YEARS ago.

How much does that machine cost (approximately)?

When I bought it, I believe I paid around $250. It was refurbished, so it cost more than that new.

What types of things do you sew (i.e. quilting, clothing, handbags, home dec projects, etc.

Right now, I primarily quilt with it, but I have done curtains in the past. And I'm going to venture out into clothing in the very near future. 

How much do you sew? How much wear and tear does the machine get?

I sew a little every night lately. It gets light use mostly; I tend to sew in batches, when the bug bites me.

Do you like/love/hate your machine? Are you ambivalent? Passionate? Does she have a name?

I don't love it, but I don't hate it. I do understand why it was sent back to the factory to be refurbished. In the time that I've had it, I've had to send the machine in three times to be repaired. If I were using this machine more that number would probably be much, much higher.

What features does your machine have that work well for you?

The basics all work well; this is really just a standard, run-of-the-mill sort of machine without any bells and whistles. I've purchased some additional feet for it (a walking foot and a darning foot) that have greatly expanded the usefulness of it.

Is there anything that drives you nuts about your machine?

I'd say the random breaking down drives me nuts. Always in the middle of a big project, WHAMMO. I think I'm temping fate by talking about it publicly.

Do you have a great story to share about your machine (i.e., Found it under the Christmas tree? Dropped it on the kitchen floor? Sewed your fingernail to your zipper?, Got it from your Great Grandma?, etc.!)? We want to hear it!

My first sewing machine was this cheapo Brother that I bought from WalMart for around $90. I didn't want to get an expensive one, because I wasn't sure how much I was going to sew; I think I made two bags on it before it broke on me. Apparently, trying to send fifteen layers of fabric and batting was a little too much for that machine to handle. Whatever. So, there I was, moping that my new toy was broken and it was going to cost more to fix it than I paid for it, when my husband surprised me with this one. He found it online and bought it because he could see how much I really wanted to sew.

Would you recommend the machine to others? Why?

This one? Not at this point, because they don't make them brand new any more. My experience with a refurbished machine has not been fantastic. I mean, for the most part, it works great and I've knocked out a couple of quilts on it, but there is always the fear that changing the stitch type is going to piss it off and send it into a tantrum. 

What factors do you think are important to consider when looking for a new machine?

Having done a few more projects, I would look for some of the more advanced features. Ease of threading is a huge one, and I would really recommend finding something that comes with all of the accessory feet if you can find it.  My machine's light over the work space is a little dim, so I would want something brighter in that area.  

Do you have a dream machine?

My dream machine is something that can do light embroidery and sewing/quilting; I want an all in one machine. I haven't found a specifc one that I'm drooling over yet, but hopefully in the next year I'll narrow down my search and buy a new one. The Singer will stick around for backup usage.

ETA: Right after posting this (and I mean, seriously, the next day) the damn thing broke. The tension was seven kinds of screwed, and if you know anything, that's bad.  So I hauled my cookies to the nearest Joann's to stalk machines, and I ended up with a super cool new (to me) machine.  That I love. So I'm going to have to say that I totally DO NOT recommend the machine above.

And as quickly as the blocks went together, so went the quilt top.

Of course I had to include an art shot!

For the quilting, I'm not following the free motion plan that was laid out originally. I've done all of the straight up and down lines, and I'll be launching into the diagonals as soon as I get home tonight. I saw a great tip from Carolyn on one of Carrie's pictures to use painter's tape to keep things straight. I picked some up at my local Wal Mart and will be applying it liberally to the quilt in an effort to sew a semi-straight line. Let's be honest, folks, my lines wander all over the place. I like to call it "quilting character". I did manage to find a darning foot to fit my sewing machine over the weekend ($11 on eBay! SCORE!), so I'll be trying that out once I finish this thing. Possibly on a matching pillow for the quilt.

My sewing setup these days is looking like this:

Note the toddler chair at the end of the table. I have to scrub the entire table every night before I set up the sewing machine, because that kid eats like a rabid kangaroo. The table is a little high for sewing to be totally comfortable. I'm missing my sewing table like crazy, with all of the drawers and extra space to cut and press seams, but this is doable for the next while. If I do anything larger than this quilt, though, I'll be pinning it goether in the parking lot because we have no free space in the apartment. Do you think the apartment complex would think me crazy if I used the entry to their rental offices to pin out my quilt?

I thought these blocks would take a lot longer to complete, but I knocked them out in just a few days.

Yellow:

Orange:

Pink:

Green:

Blue:

Purple:

I've cut the sashing for them, and I'll start putting it together tonight. I need to go buy the backing and the batting for it since I'll probably be quilting it by the end of the week. I'm loving how the colors are bright and happy. This will be perfect for Sarah's room! The only change that I'm going to make is that I'm not going to put the extra blocks into the back of the quilt; I think I'll use them as artwork in her room. I'll have them matted and framed, and I'll hang them above her bed.  I'll also have to make her curtains and a pillow or two, but that's why I bought double the fabric. I'm thinking string blocks for the two pillows. 

On top of that, I have been knitting:

That is a feather and fan scarf made with some of the SAFF yarn that I picked up last year. It had two random knots and a large section of unspun yarn which I cut out and had to spit splice together. On one hand, yeeeech, and on the other hand, it totally worked. The yarn is very thick/thin so I didn't want to use it for socks. Still, it was calling to me, and I think this shows off the yarn to the best advantage. wouldn't that be a great color for a cardigan? I need to investigate getting a bunch of this in DK for a sweater….

We moved. We left our first house and crammed the contents into one storage unit and one apartment; surprisingly, the smaller space in the apartment doesn't feel as small as I thought it would. The kids are sharing a bedroom, which they find utterly hilarious because HEY! We can SEE EACH OTHER from our BEDS, holy crap this is AWESOME until 10:30 at night when mommy is considering resorting to baby Benedryl because she has put us back into bed for the seventybillionth time and is about to cry. It took Bryan a month to figure out that he could get out of his toddler bed when we transitioned him; it took Sarah about seven minutes to figure that same thing out.

The move itself went well, aside from the giant bruise that came from only God knows where:

I discovered that little baby when I went to take a shower after Day 1 of THE BIG MOVE. I honestly have no clue what caused that kind of damage to my leg; you think I'd remember getting hit hard enough to leave that kind of a bruise.

Since I also managed to finish my class load (A in English, B in Accounting II) AND we moved, I treated myself to some fabric for the stash.

These were both eBay purchases. I am your typical stasher; I buy this stuff in a frenzy, when I'm all caught up in how pretty it is, but I don't ever have a specific project in mind for it. I do the same thing with yarn. I rarely go into buying craft supplies with any specific use in mind, which is why I'm about to be buried under a mound of wool. I'm determined to use these fabrics up before the summer is up, though. I think this is going to quickly become the Summer of the Quilt.

Take one woman, work her to death and then let her stumble across a great online quilt along. Said woman will then obsess over the great quilts that are in the Flickr! group associated with the quilt along, and start plotting the quilt that she wants to make. She might even steal some inspiration from one of the quilts included in the quilt-along, and shamelessly copy the color scheme.

I never claimed to be original. Just crafty.

I ventured out with my two year old in tow today to the local Joann's to scope out fabric choices. This is the equivalent of stabbing yourself in the face repeatedly with a spoon while trying to retile your floors; the two things just don't go well together. The liberal application of a sheet of stickers calmed her down enough so that we could get down to business. We are moving Sarah into her toddler bed next week when we move into the apartment, and while she will be able to use the bedding she already has, we are going to need something new for the house. This quilt along looks to be the perfect excuse to throw together something bright and girly for Little Miss Thing. So after a few minutes of sticker-induced bliss, we had already snagged some SUPER BRIGHT SOLIDS.

Exhibit A:

HI! I DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN STILL HEAR ME OVER HOW LOUD THESE COLORS ARE.

Solids chosen, the real fun began: picking out the coordinating patterns. I wanted something still very bright and happy, but I wanted tone on tone fabrics. I like what I have chosen, but I do reserve the right to change any of them at any time based on my whims.

And then again, all together:

I will return later and get sashing and all of that, and I bought twice the amount of fabric required for the project because I will need to make curtains and pillows to coordinate; overall, I'm very happy with what I've got. I'll probably use white sashing and get more of the pink for backing/binding. That is all way in the future, though, because I still have to work my way through an Accounting test and moving into our apartment before I can even start on this thing. 

SO. EXCITED. TO. QUILT.

MUST. ABSTAIN.

I started these socks last…April? According to Rav, it was April. I started them while I was in the middle of my physical therapy sessions for my busted ankle; for some reason, I stuck them in a basket and forgot about them for six months. I came across them over the break and realized that i was only half a sock away from being done with them, so I sucked it up and finished them off. They don't even look like they are from the same skein. The dyeing was very uneven, apparently, but you know what? I don't care. I like them this way. The heels and toes are yarn that I dyed myself in an attempt to match the yarn – it's not even close, but I think it works anyway. I am just glad that they are done and ready to be worn.

I'm really torn over what I want to do knitting wise this year. Socks, of course, are always on my list, and I want to finish the Forest Path Stole, but other than that…hrmph. Stranded knitting? Sweaters? More lace? My stash is fleshed out well enough that I can pretty much knit whatever I would like and not set foot in a yarn store for the entire year, if I so chose. I'm hoping that I gain more inspiration in the weeks to come, because right now, not much is tugging at me. I think we all go through phases like that, though. Phases where something you love dearly just isn't twanging your strings.

Lucky for me, I have other things to keep me busy!

Or at least, I WOULD if my sewing machine wasn't acting up. I need to drop it off for a tune up (and possibly a time out), but I think that once we have that straightened out, I'll be doing a lot more sewing.

Oh, how I love this time of year. I always save up at least a week of my vacation every year to take off before Christmas – Very Large Corporation gives us the week of Christmas off anyway, so that is at least two weeks of no work. Combine that with school being over as of December 12th (4.0 semester; I'll TAKE THAT), and you have one happy girl. I'd be happier, though, if I didn't have to clean my entire house this week, top to bottom, but when else am I supposed to do it? We don't do Spring Cleaning in my house – we do Christmas Vacation cleaning.

But of course, I have to make time to do something crafty. Twist now has one sleeve, completed and seamed in:

The other sleeve is about half done, and I am hoping to have this completed by the end of the year. If I pull this off, this will be the first sweater that I have knit in peices that actually fits me. The last one I attempted ended up going to my much smaller sister, because apparently I can't read a gauge swatch to save my life.

Knitting isn't the only thing I've got on my mind, though. Take a big group of friends, give them a warm summer and (I am guessing) a couple of drinks, and I now have at least six friends that are expecting babies between January and May. For the love of God, if you come to Austin, keep in mind that this seems to be in the water – I, myself, am sticking to bottled water from somewhere in the Ozarks. There is only one boy in the mix, everyone else is gestating girls, which is lucky for me because I apparently only by fabrics that are suitable for girls. 

I have to pick up something for a boy quilt, but I think I've got more than enough to keep me busy for a while with this bunch. For the charm squares, I'm thinking that I'll pick up some coordinating brown and red, and do little borders on the squares, and then sew them all together, alternating the red/brown borders. The flannel is big enough to do one of the one sheet baby blankets like I did for my kids a few months ago; that is probably the easiest one to knock out. For the others, though, I have no definite plans other than to turn into something I can gift at a baby shower. I have been missing my sewing machine for the past few weeks, but it looks like we're about to become reacquainted in a BIG way.

Stages of a Quilt:

See pattern.

Stalk fabrics.

Buy fabrics.

 

Debate on how fabrics look together.

Stalk more fabric.

Decide that first fabric was right, stash additional fabric purchse.

Hope husband doesn't notice.

Cut fabric.

Cut MORE fabric.

Realize that if you'd been doing this on the table instead of on the floor, your back probably wouldn't hurt as much.

Curse softly.

Sew first blocks together.

Take dorky picture of first blocks.

Sew LOTS of blocks together.

Attempt to lay them out in a pleasing pattern.

Spend two hours trying to lay them out in a way that doesn't make your eyes cross.

Give up and just sew them together willy nilly, because really, all of those patterns together isn't going to just magically look soothing.

Decide that's how you wanted it to look in the first place, dammit.

Sew together backing.

Let someone convince you that you can machine quilt it on your own machine.

Start quilting.

Think mean thoughts about overly-ambitious quilty friend.

Finish quilting.

Realize that you don't have enough of any one fabric to bind it.

Decide that since it's already such an eye test, you might as well bind it with random scraps you have left over.

Cut strips from scraps.

Sew into binding.

Attempt to lay quilt down in living room to pin binding down for sewing.

Quickly jump out of the way when your husband screams because you are blocking the TV during one of the biggest games of the year.

Sew binding onto quilt.

Flip and handstitch to backing.

And handstitch.

And handstitch.

And handstitch.

Finish handstitching.

Take pictures.

Bask in glory.

It's funny – I love the colors and the patterns of fabric and yarn, but once I get something that I've just fallen in love with in my hands, I'm almost paralyzed with indecision. What pattern would make the best use of it? I don't want to misuse a perfectly good bolt of fabric or skein of yarn; this is how I end up stashing things away for years and, in some cases, forgetting I've got them. Thank God for Ravelry and the pattern queue over there, because that has kept my knitting going at a fantastic pace. However, for quilting, I have no such luck. I end up browsing for patterns that are worthy of the fabric. It doesn't help that I'm extremely picky about patterns, either. 

However, when I run across things like this Bento Box quilt, suddenly I see possibility in my mind.  I haven't really liked any of the other Bento Box quilts that I've seen, but that one caught my eye. I mean, wow! Just pair a solid colored fabric with some of the insane fabrics that I've picked up over the years, and presto! Instantly cute quilt! And from there I browse that site and see other cute things, which link to other sites and other cute things…I could spend hours just browsing and looking at how other people create such intricate designs and patterns. I have a healthy amount of respect for anyone that can design their own pattern – I struggle enough when I've got the pattern right there in front of me. 

The quilt top from the last entry now has a backing sewn together and ready for quilting; I've got two tests to study for, though, so it might have to wait patiently until I get the opportunity to sit down and do some serious work on it. In the mean time, I'm already dreaming of what is coming next.

That's the completed quilt top – it actually went together much easier than it looked like it would, and it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. However, I learned these things about myself while sewing it:

• I love my rotary cutter. Seriously. I'm not sure that I'll ever use scissors on anything ever again – ANYTHING. I was considering cutting my chicken with it the other night at dinner.
• What I thought was a quarter-inch seam? Not a quarter inch seam. Each of my blocks was supposed to be 12 x 12, but they ended up 3/4 of an inch shorter on almost all sides. After squaring them, they ended up 11 x 11.
• Patterns that coordinate don't always look fabulous when placed together in a block – solids or a vaguely patterned fabric would have done much better than the weirdness in some of the blocks. 

Overall, though, I'm pleased with the result, and for a first cutting and peicing exercise, I think I did damn well. Tomorrow, I'm going to pick out the backing fabric and get the quilting pins put in so I can give maching quilting a shot.