Tag Archives: Janome 3160QDC

My bag adventures

23 Thursday May 2013

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Recently I’ve tried my hand at some rudimentary bags. I showed them to you in a previous post here and here. Then I saw this great pattern on the Sew Serendipity website. I bought the pattern and thought about it for a while. Then I was sidelined from hand quilting because I hurt my hands/wrists so I decided this was the perfect time to try to make the bag using my machine.

There are learning curves and then there are LEARNING CURVES! This one was an Everest for me. To begin with all went smoothly but then as I started sewing through 10 thicknesses of fabric, 9 thicknesses of interfacing plus one thickness of Peltex, I realised two things – 1. Manhandling all that fabric and a sewing machine is not good for sore hands and 2. I need an industrial strength sewing machine just to get that much fabric under the presser foot!

I persevered and finished the bag. Some bits I had to do by hand because they physically would not go under the presser foot of my machine. Other bits I did but not to my satisfaction as it was too difficult to manhandle a whole, stiff, inside out bag and sew several very thick pieces at the same time.

I’m happy with the end result but IF I ever made another I wouldn’t make it so stiff. It’s just too hard with an ordinary domestic sewing machine. Anyway here it is. What do you think?

P1060008 P1060009 P1060011 P1060012 P1060014 P1060015 P1060020 P1060024

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The Which Way? quilt is finished!

21 Tuesday Dec 2010

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Finally, after a marathon sewing session involving triaging the new Janome, resurrecting the old Bernina, hand sewing till 1am and then taking advantage of a cold and blustery Sydney summer’s?? day, I finally have the Which Way? quilt bound and washed.

Most of you thought that a purple binding would be best and I agreed until I put the purple next to the quilt and everything just looked flat. Then I tried the Brandon Mably pink fabric that is in the quilt and that was fine but I didn’t have enough left. So I went for another Brandon Mably fabric that I had just enough off and that I felt lifted and energised the quilt. What do you think?

A lovely day

20 Wednesday Oct 2010

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After rain, sunshine… Yesterday was a fun day and a day I actually accomplished a couple of things. First I fixed my Janome problem. I had been tightening the needle screw as tight as I could by hand. Then I decided to have a go with the screw driver in the tool kit and this did manage to tighten it more than I could manually. After a brief test run it seems to be sewing perfectly again. Aaaah.

Then I went out with a friend who is new to Sydney and we visited the Quiltsmith in Annandale. If you haven’t been you don’t know what you’re missing! They have the most comprehensive range of fabrics I’ve ever seen and quite a large sale section too. They allowed me to take some photos to show you. bear in mind that these photos show only a small portion of the shop and a tiny portion of the sale section.

I bought couple of sale fabrics – one of which was a Kokka and some Moda cottons with scissors on them in  half metres. I also scored a lovely free pattern.

To cap off my day I finally finished re-binding the Arabesque and I’m much happier with the result. Here is a side by side comparison of  the Arabesque Before and Now. Although the latest one was taken at night with a flash and so the colours aren’t as good I think you can see a definite improvement.

A frustrating day…

19 Tuesday Oct 2010

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Ever had one of those days where you do a lot and achieve nothing? That was my Monday. I had lots of administration things to do which resulted in vicious circles of “can’t do this until that is done but  can’t do that until this is done”. You know the thing I’m sure.

Add to this, the fact that my new Janome is conspiring against me and you’ll begin to see the sort of day I had. I was trying to sew my secret project using the walking foot which has suddenly decided to vibrate so much that I have to tighten the needle every 2 inches sewn or it loosens so much it falls out! Very scary I can tell you. Not to mention wasteful in needles. However, I managed to finish the secret project which you can see a little peek of below. Hopefully it will be in the post today.

On a lighter note Mr Tiggy is over his “blue patch” and is back to his commanding self. (He’s not really imperious – well not all the time. He can be very cuddly when he wants to be.)

The “which way?” baby/lap quilt

19 Thursday Aug 2010

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Well, I bought my white thread as well as some black, greys and taupes just to be on the safe side.  I also invested in three more thread organisers.

Tina Bonifacio who commented on the beauty of my nicely organised thread collection should be happy about that. 🙂 My thread collection is just about the only organised thing in my sewing room though!

Anyway, hopefully I’ll get the “which way?” baby/lap quilt top finished this week.

The Janome is home!

My Janome 3160QDC is back home again. I haven’t had a chance to put it through its paces yet, it’s still snuggling in its tote, but I’m itching to have another go at free motion quilting. I want to practice so I can use it for the “which way?” quilt.

Why is it the “which way?” quilt?

Because I’m spatially challenged and I don’t want to have to do any “unsewing” so, when I pick up each block I ask myself “which way?” – so far, so good it seems to be working.

Hancock’s of Paducah came good

A few weeks ago I took advantage of Hancock’s of Paducah’s free shipping sale and bought some batting. Well they sent me one correct one and one wrong one. They told me I could keep the wrong for the inconvenience caused and they would send me the right one. And they did! It arrived yesterday. Thank you Hancocks! Don’t you just love good old-fashioned customer service!

Aren’t these fabrics cute?

17 Tuesday Aug 2010

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I want to make a small bag with a braid type handle for my 7 year old granddaughter. You know the sort… big enough to hold sunglasses and an iPod and not much else. I don’t have a pattern but I have picked out the fabrics. I showed them to her and she loves them. Here they are:

Aren’t they cute? You can’t see from the photo but the one with little cupcakes has gold on it and sparkles. So, wish me luck as I try to work out how to make it. I’ll try to remember to take photos of the process and then if there is any interest I’ll post a tutorial.

The Janome comes home today

Today I’m off to pick up my Janome 3160 QDC from the Janome Office. You may recall it had a mishap while I was learning free-motion quilting. Well I took it back to the dealer and their technician fixed the bobbin case by putting in a new one but that was going to cost me $35. Not a lot of money I agree, but I felt it should be covered by warranty as I hadn’t done anything and this is supposed to be a quilter’s edition machine. So I rang Janome and they agreed to look at it. The dealer kindly delivered it to Janome and their technician had a look and said the “widget” that was supposed to hold the bobbin case in hadn’t been adjusted properly at the factory. So he re-adjusted it, filed the little needle holes out and it isn’t going to cost me anything! Yay for Janome!

Oh,and I’ll be aiming to pick up some more white thread!

Stripes for the baby quilt

25 Sunday Jul 2010

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Well although I’ve been busy doing other things these past few days I still managed to fit in a little sewing after a frustrating afternoon with my new Janome which appears to be sick. In fact it became sick during my free motion quilting class. I thought we had fixed it but it appears not, so it will have to take the long and winding road back to the dealer’s to see what’s wrong. 😦 I have a feeling that this time it’s not operator error but time will tell. Sigh…

Anyway my trusty old (36 years old) Bernina came through for me and I managed to sew the stripey strips for my baby quilt. Want to see? Here they are.

Strips for the baby quilt

Strips for the baby quilt

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Attempts at free motion quilting

15 Thursday Jul 2010

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Deborah Louie's example

Deborah Louie's example

I recently bought a Janome 3160QDC because it was light enough for me to take to classes. Anyway a couple of weeks ago I had my first ever free-motion quilting lesson on said machine. Deborah Louie was the teacher.

It was fun and a little challenging but I enjoyed it enough to want to try some more, though I haven’t yet.

I thought you might like to see some examples of my first attempts.

My first attempt

My first attempt

As you can see I have somewhat less control over the machine than Deborah has but I’m not unhappy for a first attempt.

Here are some more of my efforts. From left to right Waves, Flowers and Stars and under them are some of Deborah’s examples including some fancy flowers, a variety of spirals and some geometrics:

Waves

Waves

Flowers

Flowers

Stars

Stars

Fancy flowers

Fancy flowers

Spirals

Spirals

Geometrics

Geometrics

As you can see I have lots of practice ahead of me but it’s great to have some of Deborah’s examples to follow.

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The joys of a new sewing machine

30 Wednesday Jun 2010

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Looking for the Hawthorne Threads Give Away? It’s here.

The trials of a novice machinist

Monday I was doing some sewing on my new machine. Something I haven’t done for about 2 weeks. I began to sew some 2.5″ squares for a rotary cutting and sewing accuracy test. The test went well but the stitches were less than perfect. Let’s be frank, they were awful! I couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong. I mean, I knew the problem lay with me and not the machine because it was fine two weeks ago.

So I got out the manual and diagnosed the problem as being too much tension on the needle thread so I loosened it.  No joy! So I loosened it some more. Still no joy! Time to call the dealer to find out what I was doing wrong.

Too much needle tension

Too much needle tension

Sewrite to the rescue

So I called Sewrite and once again they were very helpful, telling me to try changing the needle, and to unscrew the plate and clean out the feed dogs, bobbin and trace and try again. Still no joy! Oh well nothing for it but the 76km round trip to Seven Hills to see what I was doing wrong. So on Tuesday off I went to Seven Hills with my Janome 3160 QDC all packed up nicely. I walked in, set it up and Rose came to have a look. She opened the bobbin case and said “There’s no tension on the bobbin thread because your bobbin’s in upside down!”.  She turned it round and all was once again sweetness and light. Aaaah! Fixed in 30 seconds! Sigh. And really the manual was right as there was NO tension on the bobbin thread of course the needle thread tension was too tight! The joys of a new machine and a novice machinist!  At least now my machine is all ready for my next machine quilting lesson – free motion. Very scary from my point of view but I’ll let you know how it goes.

The right thread

While I have been basting my latest project I’ve been wondering where I could get some YLI silk thread to use for the appliqué. Anyway not only did I learn something from my trip to Sewrite but while I was there I spied just the right shade of YLI silk thread that I needed. So that was a plus! Now, back to some more hand sewing…

YLI silk thread

YLI silk thread

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Putting the Janome 3160QDC through its paces

20 Thursday May 2010

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Looking for the fat quarter give away? Click here… there’s still time to enter.

Putting the Janome 3160QDC through its paces

Yesterday I just did some ordinary sewing on my new machine but today I thought I’d try out the walking foot and quilt the spring quadrant for my Kaffe For All Seasons quilt. The main difference I notice is that it is so much quieter than my old mechanical Bernina – but then to give it its due it is 36 years old!

The Janome 3160QDC and The Kaffe Spring Quadrant

The Janome 3160QDC and The Kaffe Spring Quadrant

I have to say that I wish I hadn’t started doing this in these straight lines. It is so boring! Oh well, onward and upward… I also vow never to baste another quilt with Basting Spray. It doesn’t stick and makes it very hard to quilt. Another “learning opportunity”! 🙂