It’s not me, it’s you

I have a new sewing machine. And it is absolutely sublime. Truly. The most notable thing is the “pull”. I had no idea what a difference that made in my stitch length consistency. Really, truly, I don’t suck. I just had a small, not-so-powerful sewing machine. What a relief.

I have just scratched the surface of playing with free-motion quilting. I honestly thought that I just would never be able to do anything other than straight-line quilting with jilty stitches. But now there is hope. I practiced a lot this weekend – and I am amazed at how much better I got in a fairly short amount of time. My stitches are looking even and the back of the quilt sandwich isn’t completely humiliating.

I have not seen the benefit of improving my piecing accuracy yet. Still working on that perfect scant 1/4 inch. But that is the easy stuff, it’ll get there.

The walking foot is horrible. Loud and tetchy. Despite that, my stitch quality still was better than before. But a bit dissapointing. And then I machine-finished the binding on a BIG quilt I made and discovered that I really don’t need a walking foot because of the awesome pull of the machine. My stitches on the binding were blisfully straight with my (thin) batting and four layers of fabric.  My mom has an awesome Singer, and she said that she typically doesn’t need to use the walking foot when she quilts on her machine.  I was completely puzzled.  Sometimes I became so desperate with my machine I thought of using the walking foot when just piecing.

I am back at work and away from my machine today, which makes me a bit sad. But it will be there when I get home. And I am relieved to know that my seeming forever-stuck-in-beginner status of finishing my quilts had as much to do with my machine as it did with me.  My little machine is safely stored close by so that I can pull it out for zig zag stitching… and… uh… I’m sure I’ll think of something else.

For a complete and charming review of the sewing machine I bought, see here. It convinced me.