Get Original! Make It Yourself!

What’s on at Bargain Box in JULY 2011.

Well I’m back. Still in one piece, sort of, and no thanks to the State / Federal health system.  Ego damage is the big thing, first time in all my years of competitive model aircraft flying (20) that I have injured myself.  The fingers will heal but the ego is severely bruised. In the mean time “hunt and peck” on the key board takes on a new meaning.

I must apologise for the length of the last newsletter I try to keep it to 4 pages but with all those photos well things got away from me

While the Brother sales finished at the end of June we are still able to offer “special” prices on some Brother lines thanks to Brother themselves.

Helen has a review on the QC 2000.  She made a quilt for her daughter who lives in Canberra who is complaining of the cold once more on that later in the missive. We’ve been selling a number of the top ranges of embroidery machines so I guess we are increasing the number of potential Brother Club members.  On that subject Brother has come to the party with 2 projects (both bags, what else) so they will be down for projects on Brother Club day in the very near future

We have new stock on the way from overseas, islander fabric, just the thing for sarongs and Hawaiian shirts for next summer.  We expect them to be in shop by mid  July.

Classes: Helen is exploring new ideas for the bag of the month club and is starting to put together kits and instructions for those she has already run classes for.  Most other classes have finished up and our instructors are on a short break.

New classes are due to start late July, the list etc is elsewhere in the newsletter.

Brother Club: While our numbers were down slightly due to other commitments we still had a fun, interesting and productive time.

Our project was to embroider and make shoe bags from satin. So we learnt more about embroidering on satin and used some of the different stabilisers. Linda also experimented with the Brother gold thread and was very happy with the result – no shredding of the thread from start to finish. Helen showed them her “secret” for sewing the lining and you will see that the end results were good. Here Helen Cook and Linda show their finished bags.

 

QC2000 Review

The QC2000 is a new machine that Brother released earlier this year, and those of you who have been in the shop recently will have seen it on display, so with the token male’s encouragement Helen decided to do a review on it.

As some of you have see I have been endeavouring to make my eldest daughter Katrina a quilt for her 30^th birthday in June. As she lives in Canberra, a very useful gift! So I thought that I would use the new machine and test out how good it really is.

Even though it is advertised as a quilting machine, as a general purpose machine it is great. It does all the usual things that you want from a machine – a large range of built in stitches and some very useful utility ones (Brother does seem to have a lot of alternative buttonholes!) All these are accessed from the large touch screen which is very easy to see and read. It also has a really good needle threader.

It comes with the large table as you can see in the picture, which was great when I was quilting, but would be useful for large things such as curtains etc. You can sew without and it has the normal one as well, and of course a free arm.  It also comes with a ¼” foot and a  ¼” foot with a guide which I found very useful. It has the usual things that most Brother machines have, easy and secure bobbin filling (you don’t have to unthread to fill the bobbin), you don’t have to pull the thread up from the bobbin, it just does that when you start.

When I was doing the quilting on the machine I just sewed the rows, didn’t bother with a walking foot or anything special and I must say I was really pleased. I started out by starting in the middle of the quilt – but got impatient with that so just started at one side and sewed to the other. No puckering or catching the backing in an untidy mess!

The pivoting function was really good as well – you set the machine (just touch the screen) and whenever you stop the foot raises itself just enough to be able to turn the material, then when you start the next bit it lowers it itself and you continue sewing.

The machine does have lots of other features for quilters in particular, you can even sew sideways without turning the material! You can save quilting designs and other stitching designs and make your own. There are many more features that I haven’t even tried yet!  I did seem to have plenty of room to fit the quilt through in the space.

The only thing that as I am a bit of a lazy quilter, while I was sewing I didn’t roll my quilt as I was sewing in the middle and some of the quilt did go against the touch screen so it changed the stitch length once or twice – a little disconcerting!

Overall as a general sewing machine it is good, being stronger than some of the cheaper machines, as for quilting I think it would be great for both the beginner and the experienced. I don’t do a lot of quilting so I think it actually helped make the task easier!

I would like to go on record to say minimal use of the whip was used to extract the above review

TTM

New Stock

While we have not had a lot of new stock in recently, there is always something coming in so you need to check to see what’s there.

Sewing Machines:

I have been getting in some machines for repair etc recently and a number of things have come to light that are I think worth reporting

1. Servicing. A lot of machines are coming in for repair that have had defects develop because the machines have not been cleaned regularly or serviced.  Clean out the bobbin holder regularly and get the machine  serviced at least once a year and in the end you will save yourself a lot of frustration and money.  Another one to show up is lubrication. Got to lubricate / oil the machine right?  No! read the instructions and you will find with most modern machines you DO NOT lubricate them, the exception in the Brother range being the overlockers and some of the cheaper models and then only sparingly.  If you do “lubricate” your machine you will incur expense for me to clean it all out and hopefully you won’t damage any components on the way.  At the very least you will get oil / grease over your thread and on your material which doesn’t result in a good look at all.

2. There are a lot of old machines still surfacing.  Brother supports machines up to 10 years old and then tapers off.  If I cannot access the service manuals and parts catalogues I really can’t do much about repairing these old units.  When I get one I usually ring up Brother support and see what can be done, sometimes we are successful but for the most part we are not unfortunately.

FOR SALE

We don’t usually do this, but this is a special favour for Helen Cook one of our instructors. Helen has a low use 750D embroidery machine for sale.  We sold it to her but she fell in love with the “big machine”, the 6000D, which thanks to her ever suffering husband Graham she now has. Result - some lucky person can get an almost new 750D for I believe $750.00. If you are interested  we can provide Helen’s contact details should you need them.

What’s on at Bargain Box in July: Classes coming up:

Bag of the month: 1^st Saturday of the month: 2^nd July-

Best Ever Bag.    2.00pm to 5.00pm

A very practical bag with lots of pockets!

Note:  As of August Helen will be shifting the Bag of the Month to the

3^rd Saturday of the month

Lingerie: New class in Knickers and cami’s: Starts Saturday 2^nd July 10.00am to 12.30pm. There is still a couple of vacancies.

Evening classes: 6.30 to 9.00pm. These classes start the week after the Cairns Show

Monday night: Home Decor: Come and learn to make things

for the home, from cushion covers, curtains, wall hangings,

table runners, to patchwork quilts etc etc.

You could even make “Elliott”. Starts 25^th July

Tuesday night: Intermediate sewing: For those who can do some sewing but want some extra help with patterns, sewing fitting etc. Starts 26^th July

Wednesday night: Absolute Beginners. Start from the beginning and learn to use a sewing machine and overlocker. Everyone chooses and makes their own outfit. Starts 27^th July.

Thursday morning Craft and sewing group 10.00am to 12.30 pm. We will have one week off on July 14^th while Helen and Trevor are away at a daughter’s wedding.

Brother Club: 3^rd Tuesday of the month: 19^th July:  10.00am to 12.30pm Embroidering onto a V neckline.

Don’t forget:

Australian Sewing Guild meets at Bargain Box on the 2^nd Saturday of the month . Next meeting will be 9^th July

Reef Sewing Sisters sew at Bargain Box on the 2^nd and 4^th Monday of the month. The next ones will be 11^th July and the 25^th July.

Date claimer: Jane Grove is coming to take classes at Bargain Box, one day on overlocking and another day on Machine Embroidery. 22^nd and 23^rd August.

Till next time

The Token Male