Come Stitch With Me

Lately, my social media feed has included posts about the new G+I blue and sable (gold) 50 stitch machines from Janome. These machines are available at Wayfair, Wal-Mart and similar retailers – meaning this is not a dealer exclusive model. Price point is $529.00 and includes an extension table. I thought the machine looked familiar, so I did a little research. This is a newer version of the retired DC1050 model. (FYI if you search Janome for the instruction book for the new and old models, it links to the same manual). A friend of mine absolutely loves her DC1050 and she travels extensively with it. This is certainly a contender for air travel as it measures just shy of 15″ wide and will fit in a 16″ wide underseat rolling bag.

If you prefer a more traditional white sewing machine, then consider a Janome 2030DC (current kmodel is G for garnet), which is about the same price point. It has fewer stitches, but offers a fold down accessory storage tray. It is also 15″ wide, so it should fit inside the same 16″ wide underseat rolling bag. You’ll need to purchase the wide table separately.

Lastly, don’t forget about the Elnita EC30 and the Elna 450 (both also made by Janome), which are right at 15″ wide and weight 11 pounds each. They do fit inside my Travel Pro 16″ wide underseat rolling tote with the accessory cover and spool pin holder removed.

Wish Janome would update and bring back the 3/4 size Jem Gold series. Increase the speed to 820 spm (instead of 650 spm), add a serpentine stitch, pin stitch (slimmer blanket stitch), plus some feather stitches would be really nice.

I have a stack of quilt tops waiting to be finished. It’s taken several months, but I’m now comfortable with Ellie’s ASR and have fine-tuned the machine settings, plus needle and thread to produce consistent results. Using spray baste and minimal pinmoors to secure my quilt layers has also helped.

Basting a quilt sandwich is my LEAST favorite part of the quilting process. I’m sure I’m not alone! Enter pool noodles, a can of spray baste and a patio table on my lower porch.

There are a number of videos on YouTube on how to baste a quilt using pool noodles. You could also use pipe insulation sold at Home Depot or your local hardware store. This method works quite well, whether you pin paste or glue baste. Personally, not having to deal with pins makes FMQ so much easier. I prefer to use spray glue outside, which is why I set up on the lower patio. I’m also out of the elements, for the most part.

Once basted, I put everything away and then run an iron over the front and back of the quilt. I lay it out on my cutting table overnight to completely dry. Yes, this is the quilt shown being basted in the above photo.

The traditional method to apply quilt binding is to attach the binding to the front of the quilt by machine, flip the binding over and sew it to the backside of the quilt by hand. I reserve this for show quilts and special quilts only. Every other quilt has machine sewn binding – meaning the binding is attached to the back of the quilt, flipped to the front and sewn down by machine.

In the above photo, I’m using the Janome Left Bi-Level foot for 5mm-7mm sewing machines. I’m also using the straight stitch with the tie-off/autolock feature (stitch #3 in the image below). I moved my needle position as far left as it would go and set my stitch length = 3.0.

I find that the Left Bi-Level foot works best on a sewing machine with a 7mm wide stitch width. However, you can make it work quite easily with a 5mm wide machine. such as the Elna 450 shown here. Rather than let the binding ride against the narrow left toe of the presser foot, simply align the edge of the binding with the left side of the larger right toe of the presser foot as shown in the above photo.