Quilty Hilfblogger

Around mid day I ventured onto the sewing machine for the first time! The big question, as was right back in blog post number 1, was: can I sew a straight line?

Armed with the spare row of quilt squares I attempted to sew in the ditch, that is positioning the machine needle in the little groove where the hems of two squares join.

And I'm delighted to say I could keep my fabric lined up, by resting my finger at the edge of the sewing machine foot and using my finger to line up the hem line with the gap in the center of the quilting foot.

I admit I had help to keep the large bulk of the quilt straight and not bunching up while I fed it through, but overall I am very happy with how much I was able to do!

Here's a photo of me (in my Quilty Hilfblogger jumper... what you can't see if my legs under the table, one sock on, one sock off because the sewing machine pedal doesn't run away from me so much if I don't have a sock on that foot!)... you'll also note I found sitting side-on to be helpful. That enabled me to feed the fabric through, or rather pull the fabric through with my left hand, while using my right hand to feel that the fabric was lined up... it was difficult to do that and push the fabric through while sitting directly in front of the machine.

As with everything when you can't see, it's a question of adapting until you find a way that works for you! I'm really glad that there is a way that works for me to use a sewing machine... I'll probably stick to hand-sewing my quilt tops because I enjoy doing that, and then use the machine for all the assembly stages.

let me stop rambling, here's the photo!

So now I'm just waiting for my 2-inch bias tape maker to come from Joanne's mail order... it turned out that what I bought before was the tip for one of the electric machines and not the nice little manual bias tape makers, so I'll crack on with quilt 2 while I wait for the postman :)