I checked my baby out of the hospital yesterday – my Janome 66oo, that is.  Turns out she was trying to telling me that she needed a bit of a spa treatment.  Thankfully, all she needed was a good cleaning and a lube job.  It’s been about 1 year, 2 major quilts and  half a dozen or so small projects.  I guess it was time.

Moral of the story:  Treat your baby well and she won’t let you down!

Another lesson learned the hard way:  I should have paid more attention to this, but of course I had to find out the hard way.  Even with the 6600 and 6500 being practically the same machine, I evidently needed to pay closer attention to calibrating my 1/4″ seam allowance.  After I switched machines, I was working on a pieced border with a lot of seams.  It’s amazing how much length can be eaten up by being off just the slightest bit – after a while it just adds up!  My 35 1/2″ border strip was nearly a 1/2″ too short when I was done!  I had to do a bunch of adjusting but I managed to make it up without a noticeable difference in the design.

Moral of this story:  If you change machines mid-project, make sure your seam allowances are the same as with the previous machine.  On a quilt with a lot of matching seams,  it can mean the difference between the use of a very sharp instrument along with a lot of unmentionable words and stress-free satisfaction with how well the piece came together!

 Lessons learned – now back to the sewing!

Helle-May