Bernina 830 & Miniature Quilt

Well I watched the much hyped Bernina live feed video for their new 830 last night. First it looks like it will be a great machine for those that want and need all the features but the live feed was rather a disappointment. I thought the singing was cheesy and you couldn't really see what the gal was pointing to a lot of the times. Some of the new features do sound great though.

I do agree that it will be fun to actually see one in person but I have no need nor do I want a sewing machine that large or expensive. If I am going to spend that kind of money I would get one of the less expensive long arm machines.

Here are a few photos of the miniature I have been working on and trying to get done by tonight. Want to leave myself some time to collect the stuff I need for the class I am taking at QuiltNebraska and to get my clothes ready on Wed.

This is how I inserted the small 1" star into the quilt. I chose to machine applique it and used freezer paper with a circle drawn on it and ironed it to the back of the quilt in the position I wanted the star. I cut out a circle of fabric leaving a little more than 1/8" to be turned under. Used a glue stick and turned the edges under and glued them to the freezer paper.

This is how it looks from the front before I put the star under the hole.

This next photo is a close up of the star stitched in place. I used clear nylon thread on top and Bottom Line on the bottom and used a small stitch that looks like a button hole stitch. Of course you shorten it to almost nothing and turn the width down to catch only a couple of threads. It is such an easy way to get out of piecing the star into the quilt. With all my seams in the other part I just couldn't figure out how to get it pieced and not have a mess. When things are this small I sometimes have to figure out a better way to get something done and this technique worked for this quilt. Oh, forgot to say that you take the freezer paper out after the stitching is finished. Another thing I did was tip the star over on it's side so I wouldn't have to match the seams - thought that might be just a little too tricky with something this small. Every little imperfection looks large on miniatures.

This last photo is of the quilt before I started quilting on it. I inserted a small gold piece of folded fabric in the seam between the blue and the green. Think I will use a small piece of the same gold near the binding too. Just needed to pull that gold out and use it in the quilt more than in just the star.

Back to the sewing machine as time is getting short.

Lynn