School of Fish Top

 I made all these fish last weekend--the quilt has 120, but I made some extras. I spent a couple of nights sewing the rows together. They were all stitched on my 1961 Singer Featherweight. It is about 55 inches square. I have the link to the tutorial a couple of posts back, if you are interested!

 Today, I have been working on the Clementine Quilt Along Month 4 Blocks. They are all cut and ready to assemble and will be revealed on April 25th when the instructions post for the public. #stjude There is a link on my right hand sidebar.

If you did not see my post earlier this week, I received terrible news that I have worn out my Pfaff Ambition 1.5. It lasted 7 years and I paid $1100 for it. My local sewing machine shop has closed, so the nearest sewing machine dealers are a little more than an hour away. My mom and I ventured up there yesterday to see what they had that would meet my needs. The only thing I found was this Janome $2800 (more with tax and bobbins)--I liked the machine very much, but not the price. I tried a couple less expensive Janomes, but they lacked a wavy stitch. I looked at a used Bernina, but was not really impressed with it--its wavy stitch was not very pretty and the bobbin loads from the bottom which is a pain when your machine is in a cabinet like mine. They also had a used Janome of this model, but it is older and did not have my required wavy stitch. Otherwise, I would have bought it! 

We also went to a new quilt shop and Viking/Pfaff dealer. I was not impressed. The only Pfaff she had was used and is a model, Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.2, I am interested in, but she did not know how to thread it and we could not get the feed dogs to move--they had been lowered for free motion quilting. Obviously, I am not interested in that one. I also am wary about if she will be in business long for servicing! My next options are Denver 5+ hours away which sucks for servicing.

My daughter asked if I could meet her over in Denver next week. Her college wants to send her to an accepted students reception on Friday night. Of course, I will drive 5+ hours each way to hang out with her basically for a day! She will arrive on Thursday night and leave early Saturday morning to be back in time for her sorority formal. 

I will probably spend Thursday afternoon and Saturday sewing machine shopping. I am going to look at a couple of Pfaff models and some Jukis. The shop I am going to carries everything (Pfaff, Bernina, Juki, Janome, Viking, etc.) and has a program where you can trade in a machine within a year. I am thinking, I can buy the low end Pfaff like I had for $1100 or a Juki for $1000 and then save money all year and trade up to the Janome next year...Thoughts?

Not having my machine for nearly two weeks now has really made me frazzled, I have to get a new one soon! I have my Postcard from Sweden to quilt and the School of Fish, not to mention 20 zip pouches that all need to be done before April is over. This is my Postcard from Sweden top. The link up for that quilt along can be found here:

http://www.mmmquilts.com