A new toy for the studio…..

Work wise this past week was a good one and I accomplished a lot.  SO, I decided to give myself a reward today (Saturday) and spend a few hours in my studio.  The goal of the day was to get my new toy ready to use……..

During our guild quilt show I spent some quality time ($$$) with a couple of the vendors and came away with a few new toys…..

The first vendor was SewingMachines.com who have a store in Atlanta and was where I purchased my Juki machine several years ago.    They demonstrated an acrylic table that would allow you to turn your machine sideways so that you were sitting at the “needle” end of the machine.   The idea is that you can easily move the fabric from side to side without running into the edge of the machine.

Right now, when I quilt, my table is set up like this…..

….with my view of the proceedings being this……

Under the new system, my machine needed to be perpendicular to where I sit.  The only problem is that my table has a cut-out that the machine sits in…..

So something had to fill this hole!!!   I went out to the garage and found some of the “extra” wood pieces that we had laying around, pulled out a tape measure and the jigsaw and got busy.   I quickly put together a “table” that would fill the space…..

It isn’t pretty, but it works…..So, this will be the new view of my quilting…..

It may just be an illusion, but I sure feel like I have more room to manuever…..time will tell!!

I played a little bit with this set up and at first I wasn’t impressed at all, but as I practiced longer, I really started to enjoy the freedom of movement.  The biggest thing to get used to is reaching across for the needle up button.

The other booth that I visited was Angel Oak Stitchery, interested mostly in their free-motion quilting rulers.   They had tons that were sized for both Long-Arm machines and Home Sewing machines as well.    I came home with a nice selection……

…..and added those to the ones that I already had……

And yes, I realized that I now have TWO  2 inch circle rulers…..argh!!!

I did some playing with these today and plan to start using them on a charity quilt in the next few weeks.

The final problem that I had to fix with this new setup was that my chair needed to raise about 4-5 inches higher so that my arms would stay at the suggested “90 degree angle”.   I spent some time looking online but couldn’t find a desk chair that would raise that high.   I ended up thinking about a drafting chair.   Michael then mentioned that he had one in his shop and that I should try it out first.   It works perfectly!!!   AND, since he isn’t working much in his shop right now, it is making the move from the garage to the upstairs studio!!

Now I am COMPLETELY ready to start “upping my game” in the free-motion quilting arena!!

On another note, the wedding plans are going great and we are getting really excited about the upcoming celebration….just two weeks to go!!!