Some Downsizing and decisions about retention...

This is a selection of machines and accoutrements I donated last Winter to a church sponsored sewing class that will rev up this late Spring.  The idea is to give each lady a machine upon finishing a series of classes. The classes will be composed of ladies from a refugee community here, and they have expressed the wish to learn to sew.  This finally catapulted me into parting with four machines, books, accessories and so on.

I waited to post about this because I wanted to see if I had regrets or felt sad to part with any of these machine. I loved them of course, but in the end I have not regretted giving them away because they may be used!  Mostly they sat here.  It also freed me to think about selling a few more! My list is now down to 7 including my serger, one of my DD's Janomes, and one that was my DMIL's machine which we just cannot part with, and which is a lovely old Pfaff 1199 and still works fine.  Donated were the Pfaff 307, Kenmore Blue Mini, Elna 2100, Elna TOP 300. All with accessory boxes, feet, bobbins and assorted other accessories and all with manuals.   All in working order.

I would urge any of you who have multiples sitting around and not being used to donate machines where they can be used. It isn't always easy to find a suitable donation site, but if the occasion arises, give it a thought!  You don't really retrieve much real estate - few square feet, but it is oddly freeing!

Blue Quilt Done...

Blue Quilt is quilted and bound. It's recipient will, I hope, be pleased. :)  I had an inspiration pic which I posted earlier on in the process, and the blocks in mine were 16" blocks. Simple really but took me almost a year. I work slowly. Most of these fabrics are Robert Kaufman Asian fabrics, but some are a line of Batiks I forget the name of. I used OMNI thread from Superior Threads to quilt the quilt and a Superior Threads pre-loaded bobbin for the underside. The back of this is a nice gray small floral pattern flannel from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I used several of the fabrics from the quilt for binding. :)   I see that the backing is no longer in stock at Missouri Star. Too bad - it is a lovely small floral leaf sort of pattern. It is hard to find nice backing. Now to plan the next quilt! It will be from old cotton plaid men's shirts my son gave me for a quilt. I will add some vibrant red KONA cotton to the quilt for OOOMPH!! Those shirt plaids do not have much in the way of color going for them.  Very subtle!  I do like them though and look forward to making the quilt. Planning on a 9 patch, might be Disappearing 9 Patch - do not know yet. The muse will tell me in about a month or so.

More Brother SE400 Embroidery Fun...

Some more fun stuff with my machine.  I know nothing I have done is exceptional or new to many of the embroiderers out there but the FUN!  And maybe someone also new to this game will benefit! :)  These above were kitchen towels I just did - two for my daughter's kitchen and one for us.  I love the red work!  And you don't have to change threads. Yes, I am working up to changing thread colors. Soon people, soon.  Meanwhile I have fallen in love with Embroidery Library. SO many designs and such nice freebies every month as well as good sales.  I have purchased a few, but really have to watch myself. My need now is for something to embroider on. I have never really been much for the bling or embellishing, so useful items will be what I look for. :) And with a 4x4 field there are still a lot of things to embroider! Here is a photo of the package of towels I bought at Joann Fabrics.They also have a few more styles and one of these days I am getting more.  I also experimented with the alphabets on the machine. It has four alphabet fonts, upper and lower case and numbers etc., but they are not sewing stitches, they are in the embroidery location.  In addition there is a built in very nice monogramming font which has larger and smaller settings, as do the rest of the embroidery patterns, including the builtin four font sets.  I experimented with my name, and it seemed to come out well. I could position it better.  I expect that to come with practice.  When I have something amazing, I will post the picture! HAHaaa...

Meanwhile I am slowly getting my Blue Quilt quilted.  Pictures will follow when that project is done. After that I am starting on an old fashioned  pieced squares quilt made out of a collection of shirt fabrics my son gave me - it will be a quilt for him.  I will add solids out of my stash and maybe buy some red to set the squares off a bit.