Brother 5000

A couple of years ago my dear husband decided he was tired of waiting on me to hem his pants. so when we went to Walmart he asked me to help him pick out a new sewing machine. LOL He was going to hem his own pants!!

so I helped him pick out a decent one not too expensive or too hard to figure out. We decided on a  Brother 5000 or the Project Runway version. When we got it home it sat in it's box for a few months. I love my antique Singer and hadn't any desire to learn a new machine. He didn't hem his own pants I did on my Singer.

well it sat for 2 yrs! I let my grandson use it and a couple of hte other grands have used it some but not alot.
I sat down and played with it to see what stitches it could do when my grandson was using it. but otherwise I really haven't touched it.

I got disgusted with my Singer the other day. It is a 1950's Singer and has lots of idiosyncrasies. One is that it has a knee petal and it is hard to control the speed of sewing.

So I got out the Brother and it is now sitting in front of my Singer on the Singer's cabinet. it fits perfectly and I have been working on a quilt block for a swap! And having a great time with it!!!!

I was used to the Singer with one stitch a plain straight stitch. this Brother has lots of stitches!!
I have a foot on it that the needle sits to the left of center. so I pushed the buttons to use the no 2 stitch. it puts the needle in the middle. But the seam allowance came out more than 1/4"!! I had sewed about half of the quilt block before I realized the seam allowance wasn't going to make a 12 1/2" quilt block!!!

So I got smart and got the book out! Pays to do that sometimes! LOL
I discovered the two buttons I have ignored are the ones that regulate the size of stitch AND the width of the stitch or in other words the size of seam allowance!!! I had been ignoring those two buttons because I didn't know what they did and I didn't want to mess up  anything!!

so this goes to show you do need to read the book first!! LOL
My quilt block is almost done and I love having so much more control over the seam allowance. On my Singer I was doing it by eye and even tho my eye is pretty good it is better when you have a machine that does it automatically for you. I just have to keep the foot so it sits on the edge of the fabric!

Now I LOVE my Brother machine!!! I will be using it alot more now!

So hopefully soon I will be able to show you all some of the stuff I am making with my Brother!

Wishing you all Sunshine and Laughter!!  May God Bless You!

Hope everyone had a nice Easter! We went to my youngest son's for dinner and all 3 of my kids were there. They are all in their 30's now but we did have 7 of my 16 grandkids there. The older 3 grandkids had to work so they didn't get to come. We still had 17 of the 26 us for dinner. Lots of good food and fun getting to sit and visit with my sons and dd as I don't get to see them as much as I'd like. Everyone always leads a busy life nowadays.

On the sewing front I host 3 swaps on the  Quilting Board forum and host the Scrap Club on there. It is a busy thread most of the time. It has been really popular!
  http://www.quiltingboard.com/member-swaps-round-row-robins-f11/quilting-boards-first-scrap-club-t207686.html

I also host a Quilt Bingo game on the Quilting Haven forum if you are interested in checking out that forum. It is an active forum every day and we have lots of fun chatting and supporting one another.
  http://www.quiltinghaven.com/index.php?topic=9351.msg280653#msg280653

I made my first mugrug recently and I think I am hooked on making them! I love the size of them and will be making lots more to sell soon.

 Here is my first attempt:

    
   

I had made a doll quilt using this 3 D technique and I loved it so I used it here for the blue flower again.
The blue flower is not flat against the backing. It is sewn a that bottom only. The petals are sewn with two sides so they can stand free.


Hope you enjoyed seeing my mugrug!

Wishing you Sunshine and Laughter!! 

so is everyone getting any sewing time in lately? I have been working on a mugrug for a swap on the Quilting Haven. I am almost done with it. I thought it would be a quick and easy project but of course I have to make it more complicated! LOL  I think it will be cute when I get it done tho. I'll post a picture when it is done.

I'm not sure what I will work on next. I have some dresden kaleidoscopes in progress that I need to finish and get onto my store but I also want to work on some stock for my store too. I usually use 1 1/2" squares and make small gift items. I really need to get some done up ahead. 

So hopefully I will have some pictures to share soon!

wishing you all a Sunshiny day filled with laughter and good cheer!!  

Gluten Free

Last Sept we decided to go wheat/gluten free and to also cut out corn anything including corn syrup from out diet.  I wanted to lose weight and I had seen it said it helped someone with there skin problems.  So as I have hand eczema I wanted to try it for at least 2 mos and see if it helped.

well after 2 weeks I discovered it helped my breathing problems tremendously. we improved our over all well being and I no longer have days where I feel like i am walking in water. My hand eczema is 85% improved and is receding more every day.

so this is a life style for us now. I have decided I have had this intolerance or allergy to wheat for along time and just didn't know it. I have struggled with breathing problems for over 15 yrs and now that is all gone! Praise the Lord!

But if I am tempted which I have only done twice - I ate 4 bites of garlic toast last week and it came back to bite! I struggled with my breathing all day the following Sat. so no more giving in to temptation! LOL

We have gone back to basics no prepackaged or canned goods from the store. I have found a few gluten fre products we can use but I dont' want to add too many carbs back into our diet so I use them sparingly. there are some really good pasta alternatives out there. Mostly the ones I've used have been made from brown rice. but they taste just the same as wheat pasta.

the one thing I have discovered is we eat alot more lettuce salads now. so I had to find dressings that are gluten free CORN SYRUP free!  Cutting out the corn syrup is much harder than cutting out the wheat.
but I found Hidden Valley makes a Hickory Bacon that is a thousand island  dressing and we really like that one. Ranch is the only one I have found so far that I can get in restaurants. It's not my favorite but it is okay.

It has been an interesting journey this last few months and as I discover more things I will talk about them here.  I hope to come up with my own bread recipe using a gluten free all purpose flour.