What a wonderful day I had yesterday! I attended a workshop with Janette, that involved playing on her longarm quilting machine. Janette is a superb tutor, and she was so very patient with us while we played with her "babies" (yes, Janette has TWO longarm quilting machines - "Lucy" and "Lennie"). Anyway, this shows my attempt at quilting using "Lucy", and Norah is using "Lennie" under Janette's expert tuition. We practiced pebbles and swirls, and flowers and feathers, and stipples and it really was great fun...
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...the aim of the workshop was to make a sewing machine cover, which we quilted on the longarm machine, so it wasn't just the excitement of using these wonderful machines - we actually got to make something useful too. Norah was using some very pretty paisley fabric for her project, and Edwina was using some gorgeous grey and lime green fat quarters (she let slip that these were bought on a recent expedition to Sew and So's at Bungay, so I might need a shopping expedition there soon!)...
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...I managed to get the main part of the cover constructed while I was at the workshop, and just had the binding to finish. As you can see I used this smart black and white stripe, which looks great cut on the diagonal. I cut 2.5" strips and stitched it into place 3/8" from the raw edges, sewing carefully around the curves. I used Clover "Wonder Clips" to hold the binding in place while I hand stitched it into place on the inside of the cover...
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...this large cover slips onto the machine and is large enough to cover my Bernina 230PE even when the extension table is in place, so will be really useful to use when I've got my machine set up for a few days when I have a mammoth sewing session. It would be equally useful if I ever bought a larger Bernina too!...
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...and here's my finished sewing machine cover - quilted and bound, and standing proudly on the matching sewing mat that I made a few weeks ago. I'm so pleased with how this turned out, I just might have to make another one for a friend, using my Bernina and trying some FMQ'ing.
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