I have been busy working on two quilt for a pair of girl twins. The twins belong to my son's close friend and I talked to him the other day and he was talking about the babies and he called them, "my girls" and I thought that was so cute. I had to make them both a little quilt you see? I found this real cute design in some quilt mag. I had stored in my scap book of saved designs that I tear out of mags. I will go through tons of mags and just tear out the good stuff that I like. My friends mags too. Here is one finished but I think it's a bit small so I'll add more of something and post them both when they are all done and quilted. I have the other one all prepared so tomorrow I'll cut out the appliques and finish that part of it. It's a cute moose in the forest with friends, cute eh?






All the applique is fused on with wonder under and then machine stitched using the applique stitch on the Janome Memory Craft 800. This machine has some beautiful utility stitches. It comes with a host of decorative stitches and a separate embroidery kit. I don't use the embroidery part, except if it pertains to my quilting. I have had my Janome for years and think it's one of the best machines out there. It has a special foot for doing the applique, in that you can guide the edge of the patch along it and it does the job perfectly. When I go to Paducha in April, I will check to see if they have anything new to add to the machine that I can use.

I know there are some name brand machines out there that cost an arm and a leg and when I researched them, the only thing that made them so expensive was all that embroidery stuff, well so it seemed to me. I often wonder what people do with all that machine embroidery? How much of it can you really use? Do they sell it? I just don't know. There seems to be hundreds of patterns to download from the web and I hear about it all the time from eves dropping lol.

Personally, you should get the machine that is useable to you and what you do. I know I will hardly ever use the embroidery part. The Janome has just enough in case you should need to use it one day. I most often use the utility stitches and love all the other features like moving the needle where you want it etc. It has just enough perks to make it a top machine in my opinion and though the price is not cheap, its well affordable for a first class machine. I always have a back up machine too, just in case lol. I have a Brother Quilt Club 1300. I also did my research on that one. It is also a great machine. I do most of my piecing on it and if I didn't have my long arm, I would quilt on that one. I have one of those great singers also, I forget the model but it's one of the desirable ones lol...it is in a lovely cabinet and sews like a dream. I keep that one in one of the bedrooms and sew on it now and then. Also, I have never in my entire sewing life taken any machine to a shop....how about that? I service all my machines, have done it for years. I learned that when I first started to sew...as I am mechanically inclined, I like to know what make it tick and keep it ticking....well so much for now....