Letters from a Mom: Me and my 'Brother'...

So, on last Wednesday, if I remember correctly, I was online browsing through Pinterest, and found a link to a cool quilting tutorial blog. It showed step by step instructions for beginning quilters, and had a lot of neat information/ideas on it (diaryofaquilter.com)

I've been wanting to get back into sewing/quilting for a while, but every time I looked at the price of machines, I got discouraged and let it go. But after seeing this blog last week, I was determined to get a machine and do this!

I got on Facebook, asking advice about where I should try to look for a machine. I didn't need new, and I didn't need fancy. Just something that worked and was reliable. A few (professional sewing) friends suggested stores for me, and I was thankful that I'd been set in the right direction, though not looking forward to spending the money on it. Then, another friend told me she'd been cleaning out her shed and was going to be giving her machine away to Goodwill, and would I like to have it? She did mention she'd always had trouble getting it to work just right, but I figured since it was free, I could try to work on it, and if it was broken, well at least I didn't spend any money on it (save the price of the coffee that I bought in exchange)

So the next day, I went and picked it up and was really excited about starting to use it. I even stopped at this awesome quilting supply store on my way (with all three boys!) to pick out some fabric. I found some super cute Moda charm packs "Just Wing It" and was all set to go. Side note: charm packs are the best invention ever. I didn't have to worry about trying to find coordinating fabrics and measuring yardage with the three kids with me. It feels a little cheater-y, but some day I'll pick them out by hand and whatnot.

Here's my free* machine:

I got right to work trying to figure out how to work the thing, and turns out it's pretty similar to the one I used growing up, but I could not for the life of me get the bobbin thread to come up the way it should, even after consulting the manufacturer's website and some YouTube videos.

Posting my frustration on Facebook, a friend of the friend who gave me her machine came to my rescue. She services machines and gave me her phone number and walked me through some trouble shooting scenarios. Within about three minutes, I had the machine working! (she had me change the needle.)

That evening, I laid out my squares decided what I wanted to do with them:

Friday morning, the kids went over to the neighbor's house for a couple hours and I got the rows all pieced:


Not sure why the photo is all wonky, but you get the idea.

Then, using material I had left from a project in high school, I added a border since the blanket was still a little smaller than I wanted:

Then I got batting and piping and backing and worked on it in between the cake I had an order for that was due on Sunday. I finished it around 4:45 Sunday morning, having wanted to finish it before we went to church that morning since the person I was giving it to is going in to have her C-Section this Friday. I'm pretty happy with the finished result even though it got a pretty lack-luster reception from the mother-to-be (which about made me want to cry, though I'm sure some of that could be blamed on the lack of sleep.)