What machine do you use to make your quilts?

Hi everyone!

I thought I would share with you the sewing machine I use to make my quilts, bags and clothing projects. It's an old one. It's about 25 years old. It's a White, Blue Jean machine. It used to be my Mom's sewing machine. She used it for mending clothes and for making everyday quilts. After I got married, she gave it to me so that I could hem pants and do small mending. I didn't use it very much in the beginning, because I could never figure out the tension. I just didn't know enough about sewing, and had very little experience using a sewing machine. When I decided to start making quilts two years ago, I did some research online about sewing machines, and how to fix tension problems. It was like a light bulb moment. Everything made sense. I figured out how the tension worked on my machine and was able to troubleshoot problems when I was sewing. The internet had so much information to help me.

Well, last night I visited Michelle. She needed some advice about one of her quilting projects. She mentionned that some people do free motion quilting with the feed dogs up. I thought to myself....hey, if I had the right darning foot for my machine......maybe I could do some free motion quilting on it. So today, I went to my LQS and they just happened to have a darning foot for "White" machines. It only cost $4.98+tax. I was so excited.

 I had promised my daughter I would make her a pencil case for school. So, I decided to do a bit of creative sewing with my new darning foot. This is the pencil case I made. I really love it. I did some reverse applique, inspired by Amy. I had the denim on hand and used scraps of fabric for the appliques. It was a fun quick project.

Now that I have this darning foot, I will try some free motion quilting on small projects. I hope to show you my progress in the next few weeks. I'm trying to watch my money, with school starting and the kids needing so much new clothes and paying for extra curricular activities. It's eating up a lot of my budget. So, I will be using what I have in my stash for the next few weeks....months. Hopefully not too long. I already didn't buy any new fabric the entire month of August.There are so many new fabric lines that I want to buy. But we do what we can.

I did have one set back the other day when my Mom was visiting. She wanted to go to a quilt shop and I purchased 3 fat quarters of Christmas fabric. But I love these, because they could also be used in regular projects too. They are not your traditional Christmas fabric. I just love them.

I don't even know what collection they are from. Oh well! I hope you all have a great Labor Day weekend.

Hugs

Ariane