Fabric Sale

Just a quick heads up, www.hartsfabric.com/ is having a 10% off sale for the next few days. Don't be put off by the seemingly high shipping cost - if you email them they are happy to ship 6 yards of fabric in a $13 bag, and are very friendly and helpful. And they have some really gorgeous fabrics, including BPA free vinyls and Japanese prints!

Also have a look at www.countrydawnquilting.com , they are in NZ at Tekopuru Northland and have some fantastic material, and its in NZ money freight is free in NZ as well. I actually buy a lot of my material from them, they have all sorts of feature material, including Ausi, and NZ materials, and some great horse material, which I purchased recently to do a quilt for a granddaughter.

I agree with you, Rae, about Countrydawnquilting - if you're after a special 'hobby' or 'farm-related' fabric they're worth an online visit. I've found them extremely obliging and they're one of my favourite places to buy from. That and Grandmother's Garden.

Actually, just thinking about it, I rarely physically go into my local quilt stores these days, and do most of my purchases online. Shame really, as Wellington has some very nice quilt shops, and in principal I like to support local businesses. It's weird, but I think nothing of buying metres of fabric online, but would think twice about it if I actually visit a store. Why is that, do you reckon? Maybe (at least with GG) it's the fact that I don't have to pay for the goods until 10 days after invoice, so it's the deferred payment thing.

I was rabbiting on to my DH this morning about buying fabric and how my LAQ now has fabric for sale as well as doing the machine quilting. He really floored me by saying "but of course you must get some when you next go there..." Don't you just love it when your other half positively encourages you in your addiction???

Thanks for the heads-up, 3scoremiles10. I'm going to check out that site now.
Cheers, Mich.

My other half went with me on friday to look at better bigger quilting sewing machines, and HE decided that the only one to go with was the Pfaff expression 4.0 which has an 11 inch throat, and you do not need to use your hand to do a lift every time you want to take the foot off the work, just push the needle down button and it does it immediatly you take your foot off the foot control. Plus its got 222 stitches, and 19 needle placings, plus many other great features. We looked as well at the quilting janome that has been put out with the big throat as well, and I could see his face, he did not like the look of the Janome at all. (same shop) So we paid a deposit, and on saturday after being at Waikato Quilters day, came home and he was busting with excitement, the machine had been delivered as the agent was down and delivered it. So that I could have a play. Also they have taken my janome 5027 Limited editon as a good trade, which I have had for 2 years. Today we delivered the janome to the sewing shop, and the guy spent ages going through all the bells and whistles with me for the pfaff. Sunday I spent quilting some of the butterfly quilt as it still had lots to do on it. And the most amazing thing is that the other machine used to make my shoulders sore, but the new machine I have had no soreness at all. So I am thrilled, now just need more time to get the horse quilt to the quilting stage that I am doing!!Its so lovely using a machine that you are not struggling with at all. I had asked other sewing machine places about their machines, but they were not interested in doing a trade, and the Pfaff was actually better value for money. The janome has been a good machine for me to start on, but need more sewing machine than what it was delivering. Neat thing for my August birthday dont you think!!!!

222 stitches and 19 needle positions!!!! [:0] All you could ever want, by the sound of it, Rae. I'm so happy for you. May you have many many hours of pleasure out of your new machine. Way to go, girl.

At the other end of the scale, a work colleague gave me his mother's Husqvarna Automatic Cl 21 a while ago, and I just took it out of the (very heavy) case on the weekend. It has all the bells and whistles that you could expect about 40-45 years ago . Hadn't been used in about 25-30 years, but all the parts were there and it still worked. Fortunately it has the original instruction book as well! Lovely shade of light metallic green (green's my favourite colour and it matches well in my quilt room) and after doing some research on the model, I discovered that quite a lot of people have one of these and love them. They seem to get snapped up if they come up for sale, so I've decided to take it in to get a full check/clean and use it for a(nother) spare. Does a nice straight sewing stitch, so perfect for quilt piecing. Need to do some practice with the fancy stitch cams, though...

Understand what you're saying about getting sore. My Bernina 153QE is a good workhorse but is a bit high on my work area. Been thinking about getting it set into the work bench, which would make machine quilting a heap easier. I'm envious of your 11" throat space. Looking at mine and comparing it with yours, I can almost feel bunched in []

Cheers, Mich.

Thanks Mich, I am looking forward to doing some more work on it but will have to wait now until the fieldays are over, as have folks booked in so cannot leave a big mess in the bedrooms. Have to pin the horse quilt so that I can get quilting it. Also finish the butterfly one. The one you have been given sounds exciting, we had my mums lovely singer machine which was top of the range when she brought it, but once we got it out of the little shed it had been stored in, plugged it in and the thing blew all the fuses in the house, so replaced the fuses, and it did it again, so talked to the machine guys and no one would touch it, so ended up taking it to the local dump. But we did tell them that it was alive if plugged in. So it was a pity, but we did not want to get electrocuted. Plus I know that she had had one of the main cogs replaced due to wear, so maybe would have had to go down that track as well.

Another good site to go for material is www.tulis.co.nz , they have lots of lovely batik materials, and also do credit cards. or www.grandmothersgarden.co.nz . Actually you dont even need to go to the shops to buy, but I did yesterday and brought the backing material from Donnas Quilting at Railside Hamilton, as that is fairly reasonably priced there. and the backing material is double width, so excellent for using.