Photo shows a detail of the needle area of a sewing machine. Two human hands are guiding the white fabric along a barely-visible seam line, and a tiny red laser dot shows where the needle is about to hit.

Fantastic laser!

About a year ago, I traded in my Bernina 790Plus (which I *loved*) for the Bernina 790Pro. I thought long and hard about it, but I couldn’t really see a down side; the Pro has all of the fabulous features of the Plus and some amazing additions. One of those […]

A small mug rug (large coaster) in beige cotton with embroidered motif of the Eiffel Tower. There is a multicolored flag at the top of the tower, and there is text reading "Summer Olympics", "Paris, France", and "2024" embroidered around it.

Another mug rug

I’ve had this design for a couple of months and finally got around to making it today. It’s just a little mug rug (from San Francisco Stitch Company), but I wanted it as a sort of souvenir, even though we weren’t in Paris for this year’s Olympics. It only takes […]

A wooden box with hinged lid. The box is divided into eight small sections, intended for tea bags, but it is full of packages of needles. The lid has a sort of large pin cushion custom fitted into it, marked with a grid for various types and sizes of partially-used needles.

A solution!

There are times when a sewist uses a machine needle for a very short time and then has to change types. What to do with the partially-used (but not used up) needle? I’ve always simply put them back into their little plastic boxes, making sure they were as far to […]

A set of four embroidered ornaments -- two in gold metallic thread and two in silver metallic thread: two embossed hearts and two doves in flight.

More ornaments

My husband and I give our grandchildren a Christmas ornament each year. To give a bit of background, we had no Christmas ornaments when we married, so I made a point of giving each of our daughters an ornament each year so they’d have a little supply when they began their own […]

Back of the same bag in dark grey cork with multicolored trim and a zippered pocket.

iCases bag

If you’ve read this blog in the past, you’ll know that I like many of the various bag patterns from https://byannie.com. A few days ago, one of our grandsons stopped by with his iPad Mini, and I was horrified to see that it was “naked”! What if he dropped it? […]

Detail of a green heart block and a double nine-patch block in white and grey-blue. The nine-patch is quilted with small curves and straight lines.

Quilting finished!

In a huge bit of progress for this particular quilt, I’ve finished both the free motion and the ruler work quilting! That means that I’ve been able to collapse my sewing cabinet so that I can actually walk into my room, rather than climbing over things to get in. LOL! […]