We’ve had quite a week over here at the Stitch ALL The Things house. The Mister and I came down with some funky illness that took several days to get over. We’ve also been busy with my son who just started a job this past week. He is still on his learner’s permit, so one of us has to be in the car with him while he drives to work, and then pick him up after so he can drive home. On top of all of that, my husband has been on the lookout for a decent little starter car to finish teaching the kids to drive. The old Acura Legend I had just isn’t working as well any longer. This morning we managed to find, and snag, a really decent 2005 Ford Focus for him and surprised him with it when he got home from school. He now has the option of buying it from us (my husband offered to match him dollar-for-dollar on the price we paid for it), or just using it while he is here and only paying insurance on it. He isn’t under pressure to decide, but mentioned that he really likes it and most likely wants to buy it. Whatever he chooses, the car is in amazing shape, and has ice cold air conditioning!
I did manage to get a little bit of quilting done on the Churn Dash quilt. Between not feeling well and the heat, I only went out and worked for about an hour a day for a couple of days. So I’m about halfway done with it. I am anxious to get this one finished, but didn’t have much energy to get a move on.
I did feel like I was starting to find my Sewjo this week. Between looking at Pinterest for quilting ideas, and having some great ideas emailed to me (thank you, Sharon!!), I came up with a plan for the quilt. I didn’t want to go with the swirls I’ve used on the last three (four?!) quilts, but I didn’t want to do anything too complicated either. My initial plan was some dense quilting, but after some thought I realized I wanted this quilt to feel soft and comfy. So I chose to do an all over swirl/flower combo thing. I would start a swirl, and then come out and make the petals around it. I’d add a leaf on one side, and then petal around to the other side and make a ribbon curl. They’re certainly not perfect, but it’s been fun playing with this motif. I hope to finish the quilting this week, bind it, and start working on the Christmas Quilt.
This week’s To-Do list:
- Finish quilting Churn Dash
- Bind Churn Dash Quilt
- Start Christmas Quilt
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Stitch ALL The Things 
I’m loving this churn dash quilt and I’m enjoying reading of its progress. Congrats to Josh on driving. Oh, thanks for turning me on to Melissa. Highly informative!
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Thanks, T!! I am loving how this quilt is turning out too, but I’ve been working on it for so long I am definitely ready to be done with it! Melissa has some awesome advice, for sure! I haven’t forgotten about my task, I will get you something in September! 😉
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The car looks like a great find, and it will make a fabulous first car to drive!
The churn dash just gets prettier and prettier each time I see it! Truly! It is one of my favorites right now.
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Sorry you have been under the weather. Hope you and the Mister recover quickly.
Congrats to your son! It is an exciting time for our young adults when they get their permits! But I do remember those days of having to be with my off spring and driving back to work to pick them up! We were all glad when they passed that driver’s test!
I really like the motif you are using on the churn dash! It suits it well, and the quilt is looking so comfy! How much throat space does your Juki have? Are you pleased with it? I’m dreaming of purchasing a sit-down long arm. But not this year!
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Thanks, Sharon! We are feeling a lot better now, thankfully. Yes, we are exactly at that drive with them to work, drive back home, and drive back to pick them up and let them drive home stage. Our son is further in his training than he thinks he is. We think he could easily pass his test, but he isn’t confident in his decisions and so isn’t ready. But I will be happy when he does pass and then drives himself. Our youngest daughter is anxiously waiting for him to take the test so he can drive them both to school!! Haha!
I think this motif turned out to be a good one. I was having such a hard time finding a good plan to quilt each element with its own design and not have to cut the thread to get to different parts of the block. This was a much better solution to keep the quilt soft and not have to bury a bunch of threads, which I avoid like the plague! The Juki has a harp space that is 18″ long and 10″ high. I love all of the space! You quilt from the side of the needle, so the harp space is actually behind where you are sitting when you quilt. I love it, because I can bunch the quilt up back there. The only thing I have to do is put a table on each side to hold up the weight of the quilt. We could have purchased additional drop-down leaves, but they were $300 each and they were backordered. The price was high because they import the wood from the US and then export it back once they’ve made it… and the import/export tariffs are high. Brad said he’d make some to attach to the table, but we’ve been to busy to do that. So my sewing table and cutting table work in the meantime!
I do love this machine, but it has been a bit of a problem child for Juki. I believe they felt rushed to get it out on the market and all of the bugs weren’t quite fixed when they did. So the first generation of machines have been temperamental for some owners. My machine is great, no issues whatsoever. I am part of a big Facebook group that has been an enormous help to owners of this machine to get through that first learning hump. Juki and Grace Co (for the longarm set up) have representives in the group and they are very helpful in resolving issues. Now that Juki has a second generation of the machine out, there are a lot less issues than the first generation owners had. So that’s good news!
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Great find on that car! The quilting on your churn dash looks fantastic. I agree with Amy that this quilt just gets prettier and prettier every time I see it!
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We feel like we scored a great deal on the car! Josh is sort of “Meh” about it right now, but it’s more because he doesn’t like change and he just got used to how the Acura handled… Now he has to learn how to handle the Focus when it drives and he’s annoyed about that (welcome to life, eh?!). But he does love the cold a/c vs. the Acura whose a/c no longer works!!
I am loving the quilt a lot too. But I’m ready to be done with it and move on to the Christmas quilt! I am so ready to play with that Alpine fabric!
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