My new Baby! Sewing Machine that is ;)

I thought it was just me, I thought I just couldn't free motion quilt for the life of me!! I did try I really did, but I just couldn't get my projects to move smoothly under the needle and so my free motion was always jerky and the stitch sizes where wayyyy from even!

To be honest, I decided that I hated free motion and so I took up hand quilting instead.

That was of course until I found my new baby girl!

 I wasn't the only one who was excited to bring her home! Sorry about the poor photos, I was too excited about opening my new machine to stop and get my good camera out ;)

 I wasn't even allowed to take the plastic off without help :)

 And here she is! My new Husqvarna Vicking Sapphire 875!

What sold me on the Sapphire 875 was first of all the huge throat space and second was seeing the Yarn Couching foot and having a play with it. It is basically free motion quilting, but your stitches are hidden in the Yarn, so it doesn't matter if your stitches are even, because you don't even See them!

I made this cushion the night before the milton show. I used a quilting stencil and a chalk pounce to apply the design to a square of fabric, I then used the yarn couching foot and some 8 ply wool to free motion quilt the design onto the fabric. I also used some tear away on the back to stabalise the fabric.

I can't express how much fun this is to do :)

I also used the gathering foot to make the ruffle. The beauty of the gathering foot is that it both gathers and attatches the gathered fabric and whatever you want to attatch it to at the same time! Makes life much easier! No more basting and then pulling the threads to gather, its all done for you! Can you imagine how quick it would be to make a little gathered skirt!

 Anyway back to the free Motion... I guess my confidence was rising because I went looking for some free motion designs and of course my first stop was Day Style Designs. They have some amazing free motion designs and my favourite is the Flower Ball.

So I had a go and this was my first attempt at the it :)

It turns out that the fabric was sort of sticking to my old machine making it impossible to move it smoothly. The new machine is so much smoother and easier to free motion quilt on. So it wasn't just me and my lack of persistance! It was the throat of my old machine!

I was so extatic! So I got out the quilt I wanted to use this design on and got busy. I'm about a third of the way through it and I am just sooo happy with my machine!

I'm not the only one either :) My Mum sat down and saw how big the throat space is and she is very excited to be picking up her new 875 tommorow tehehe. So If your a quilter or just looking to upgrade your machine I highly recommend The Husqvarna Viking Sapphire 875!

I bought my Sapphire from My Patch Fabrics in Milton NSW Australia. The Sapphire is on special until the end of this week for $2299 and includes a Dual Feed walking foot and the quilting extension table.

I was not paid for this post in anyway. I'm just a very happy customer!

Hugs Paula

Some of these pictures were borrowed from the Husqvarna Viking website.