Phoenix Quilt, Craft & Sewing Festival

The Phoenix Quilt, Craft & Sewing Festival was this past Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I was only able to attend on Saturday. I sat in on a couple of classes and learned a few new tips and techniques. Unfortunately, the time I spent sitting in the classes took away from time to walk around to see all of the beautiful quilts, sewing and crafted items. I did get to stop by a few of the booths in the smaller of the two buildings that housed the festival. It is probably a good thing that I didn’t get to see too much more than I did ~ I made a rather large purchase while I was there. As I noted in an earlier post, I have the Brother Duetta 4500D sewing/embroidery machine and I have been hoping to eventually get the Hoop-it-all for it I figured I would get it someday, but had no plans to buy it anytime soon. Well….. I wandered by a booth that had several embroidery machines set up with various sizes and shapes of the Hoop-it-all. So I stopped and listened in on a conversation between the sales lady and a customer. I ended up talking to the husband of the sales lady. As it turned out, they were the owners (he is the inventor) of the Hoop-it-all. They were the nicest people. They were offering a show discount along with free shipping. To top it off, I could do a lay-away type of payment on it to spread the payments over a few months with no interest or finance charges, but that means that I won’t get it until it is paid for. I really couldn’t pass up the discount, plus they are increasing their prices soon. I am hoping to have it by summer.

My Sewing/Embroidery/Crafting/Computer Room

Last summer, I was fortunate enough to be able to upgrade to the Brother Duetta 4500D.  My old machine (which still works perfectly) only has a 4×4″ embroidery area.  This one has a much larger 7×11″ area.  I can also transfer the designs to it either directly from my computer, with a USB thumb drive,  from a purchased card or one that I write the files to.  Shortly after I bought this one, Brother came out with an even bigger and better (and WAY more costlier) machine.  I am happy with this one, I just wish I had more time to play on it.

 

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Another toy of mine is my serger.  It is a Babylock Evolve.  I have had it for atleast 5 years and still need to use the quick guide every time I want to use it because it has SO many stitch options available. 

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This one is just a basic sewing machine.  I don’t want to have to change the Duetta from embroidery to sewing and back, so I usually leave it set up for embroidery and use this one for sewing.  There are times that I want to use stitches or options that this one isn’t capable of, so then I do have to change the Duetta, but it is nice to not have to for all sewing.   I ran out of space for this one on the table top where the Serger and Embroidery machine sit, so I decided to use this odd shaped nook for additional sewing space.

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My threads used to be in several different containers, drawers and racks.  I would always forget what I did or didn’t have and didn’t always take time to put the spools back into their place when I was finished with them.  A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make a custom rack to fit behind the door.  It is out of the way and usually the door is open, so the rack is out of sight. 

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 I do still have 2 pullout  drawers in a rolling cart for smaller spools of embroidery thread and for my sewing thread.

Rolling storage cart with removable lidded drawers.

Storage for my sewing threads.

Some of my sewing threads.

 

I am hoping this new storage method will make it easier for me to put my threads back when  I am done with them.