New Machine

I thought I'd tell you a bit more about my new machine.  It's a JL (John Lewis) 330 - essentially a Janome and takes Janome parts.  As an exercise in getting to know know it I've finished off the crazy patchwork piece I started at the Stitch Gathering. I am now quite smitten with this technique as well as the new machine.

Apart from the price, which was in the right bracket, it has a few features I was especially looking for.  One is the ability to press a button and start or end sewing with the needle in the up or down position - no more cranking the wheel, and easy pivoting turning when changing direction on a corner.  It also has an automatic thread lock button, so you can sew a few stitches when starting or ending a line, which will save me a huge amount of faffing around pulling through threads and tieing them off.  If you set the thread lock button when using a decorative stitch the machine waits until it has completed a stitch before tying off - clever.  Add to this a sensitive food pedal which allows you to crawl along almost stitch by stitch, and a speed over-ride dial which means you can set the top speed you want to go at.  Perfect.

It has a bewildering array of button holes which I am unlikely to ever use, but I like the blanket stitch for applique.  I also love the fact that the bobbin is located under a clear hatch so you can see how full it is.

Yes, you will have to excuse the laundry drying in the background.

I also tried out some of the decorative stitches - you can see here a scallop, feather, and bobble (can't remember its name:-)) stitch and you can just make out in the smaller cream triangle that there are some little star stitches.  These can be sewed in a row, but using auto thread lock meant I was able to do one at a time and use it as a tying stitch.

I tried a bit of quarter inch quilting on the cream silk, and on the slippery wine-coloured lining fabric and it sews a lovely line - this might sound odd, but it was a revelation to me because my old sewing machine used to throw in the odd wobbly stitch, I don't know why.

So anyway, I have tested it, and have finished something!  Weyhey! I really loved making this, though hand-stitching any of it, as we did at the Gathering, doesn't work for me as I seem to be incapable of stitching in a straight line without introducing puckers.  I would probably use a foundation cloth too, especially with a fine fabric like Liberty, and an all Liberty crazy patchwork project is what I'm on to next.