New Addition

Meet my new sewing machine! I have wanted a truly portable machine for quite awhile and finally started looking about a week before my computer was stolen. I first looked at the Baby Lock Natalie (love the name!) but thought the machine was rather cheaply made and the fact that the 1/4 inch foot was $53 was a big turnoff. Who in their right mind would pay that when the machine itself was only $199? I love what I got! It has so many features, needle up/down, alterable needle drop position, and a start/stop button so you can sew without a foot pedal! And it weighs only 12 pounds.

This is a quilt made from the Jelly Roll Quilts book. It's called Bars of Gold in the book. It looks deceptively easy, and it is except for sewing the columns of bars together. I found I had to pin at every bar after carefully matching the seams to the prior column. I resolved to make all my quilt kits in 2009 and that is where this fabric came from.

When I opened the kit, the directions were missing. Either I never received the directions (bought off eBay) or they were lost. I made mine following the photo in the book rather than the directions. The difference being the width of the sashings. The directions have the sashings cut the same width as the borders but I did not have enough solid blue for that.

And for some strange reason the strips were cut lengthwise so the directional ones run kind of funny.

Don't you just love the chicks? There were quite a number of Aunt Grace fabrics I hadn't seen before.

Lastly, my house block for the March Block-of-the-Month from Forever Green Quilts completed yesterday. Wish I'd used a different green for the door. The block directions are posted on the 15th of each month and are available for 2 months.