Off to Hawaii!

Ok, this time I am totally serious…..

Time to re-launch this blog and be totally serious and committed to it.

Why now?

There are lots of reasons

I’m getting to the end of a bad period in my life

I have a lot of cool things to share

And, I’m on my way to Hawaii and I think I will return with some great ideas for new things and hopefully some fantastic fabric, shells, rocks, green sand, etc.. etc..

Sewing Machine Woes

So, my first art related story of today will be the death of yet another Viking…

I have been a loyal Viking customer since I was 18 years old.  However, that has come to an end.  

Despite them being nice machines, requiring little maintenance and usually providing nice stitching, they just do not hold out against the volume of stitching that I do.  Additionally, 99% of my stitches are a simple straight stitch; I do not need all the fancy stitches and features of a Viking.

Here’s where I want to make a very strong point to anyone about the virtues of proper tension and a good stitch.  My primary piecing machine has been a Viking Quilt Designer for many years now.  It produced a nice stitch, but I kept wearing parts of it out.  I’ve had it fixed three times over the years, with each repair being around $200.  The last time I took it to my wonderful repairman – a Viking dealer – he told me that the motor for the feed dogs was burned out and that the part alone was around $300.  He advised me NOT to repair the machine; it just wasn’t worth it.

When this happened, I was in the middle of my “Cancer Quilt” (story to come later).  I pulled out my Viking Platinum Plus to work on it.  I curse that machine on a regular basis.  It only stitched well for about a year and then developed a tension problem.  A local dealer “repaired” it five or six times, never to my satisfaction.  I shipped it to Viking directly and they claimed to have totally replaced the tension pieces and it still doesn’t work well.  Anyway, back to my point, I finished piecing that quilt with that tension challenged machine and it’s a mess.  I can see stitches all over the place.  Honestly, I’m a bit embarrassed about how it looks. 

Moral of the story – get a good machine.  That doesn’t mean that you have to spend a lot of money.  Research, test, and get what you need.  I replaced a $3,000 (over ten years ago), with a $1,000 machine and it’s vastly better. 

Years ago, I was gifted with a Juki TLQ98.  That’s a whole other story (and I think it’s somewhere in these blog archives).  That model of Juki is a straight stitch machine and it does that VERY quickly and beautifully.  I setup that Juki as my quilting machine, complete with a self-designed and built two foot square table.  My goal was always to get another one and use it as the piecing machine.  The only other function I need a sewing machine for is an occasional zig zag stitch to join pieces of batting.  My Viking Platinum Plus still functions but it has a serious tension problem.  It will, however, suffice for holding batting together inside of a quilt.  The new Juki is a TLQ2010 – twelve full years newer than the other!  It stitches very quickly and produces a beautiful stitch.

Hawaii

I’m on my way to Hawaii.  We will be vesting Oahu and Hawaii.  I’ve been told that it’s not a place for rock collecting, but I have some hopes for fabric. 

I have a large fabric collection…

I really don’t need any more…

But….

Years ago, when we went to Australia, I found some fabrics there that I could not get here.  They had Australian animals and flora depicted on them – not in a cutesy way, but some very artistic pieces.  I’m hoping to find something similar in Hawaii. 

In my quick google search, I found a place that I think might just have the unusual and truly “Hawaiian”!

More to come later!