A broken beast

My lovely Horizon is at the doctors and that makes me very sad. The casing where the bobbin holder sits in, seems to be worn out resulting in tension issues (both with the machine and me !). At first I thought I just need a new bobbin holder but unfortunately that didn't solve the problem so I took the beast to my trusted repair man Chris who I'm sure will sort her out.
 
I guess after some years of heavy usage a repair was on the cards at some point and hopefully I'll have the beast back by the end of the week.

I am halfway through quilting 'Snowy Days' and half way through quilting' Dreams of Summer'.
This picture here is just before I basted it.  It was a real joy of piecing this quilt and I only used a ruler to square up right at the very end.

Serpentine stitch on the Janome Horizon 7700

You may have read on my last post that I used a serpentine stitch for a few rows on my latest quilt.
Over the past few weeks I have on occasion seen that quilters used a serpentine stitch on their quilts and I realized I really like it as an alternative to a straight stitch.

Unfortunately all the examples I saw were sewn on Bernina machines. I tried to find the same stitch on my Horizon but only found stitch 19 under the Utilitiy section and although it has the same shape it isn't as nice because the stitch length on the curve peaks are smaller then on the rest which gives the stitch a somewhat untidy look in my opinion.


Rather frustrated with my machine (which is the first time actually) I googled for serpentine stitch and Janome Horizon and came upon a great tutorial on a website called 'Online Sewing'. The tutorial can be downloaded here and is written by Diane Stutsmann.

At first I was a little confused by the repetitions in the instructions but then decided to follow the instruction to the tee and voila a few minutes later I had the most wonderful Serpentine Stitch.

In the image below the top stitch is no 19 and the bottom stitch the programmed serpentine stitch.

Thanks you Diane Stutsman and 'Online Sewing' !

I will anchor this post on my 'Tuts Tips and Templates' page on my blog for future reference.

Janome Horizon Memory Craft 7700 sewing machine review

Update dated 17 July 2012:

I thought I pop in and give you a brief update on my experience with the Horizon given that this blog post is still one of the most viewed on my blog. 

It has now been 2 1/2 years since I bought the machine and I am still very happy with it. I have taken it for a service 2 months ago and it came back from the dealer with the comment "You are using it quite a bit, aren't you ?" You sure can say that. The dealer said that the machine was in good order and it really felt like new when I started sewing again which is probably due to it being properly oiled again.

I have had a little bit of trouble with the bobbin holder last year. My needle got stuck a couple of times when sewing through many thick layers (can't remember exactly which project ) which left indentations and marks on the plastic bobbin holder. These then caused the bobbin holder not to go around smoothly anymore (evident from the noise the machine made). So what I did was to take a nail file and file the marks and indentations smooth again. This happened several times and I ended up replacing the bobbin holder (GBP 25) as it eventually was to loose. 

I do think the plastic bobbin holder is a bit of a weak point with the machine as I recently had a stuck needle again and ended up having to file down a mark. 

This isn't something that causes massive problems and as I said in the beginning I am still very happy with my machine. But I thought it is worth mentioning.

 **************

Here comes the promised review of my Janome Horizon Memory Craft 7700 QCP. You may remember that I researched various machines back in November (see this post) and finally decided on the Janome.

I have had the machine now for 2 months and I have to say I am very happy with it.

What have I used it for so far ?

• Chain stitching all the pieces of the Cranberry Crush Quilt
• Machine quilting the entire Cranberry Crush Quilt
• Stitching and partly machine quilting the Urban Circus Quilt
• Sewed the Cabbage Bag and the Ruby Star Rising cosmetic bag

I have used the normal zickzack foot, 1/4 inch foot, dual feed acu foot and zipper foot so far. In terms of stitches I have stuck to normal straight stitches and one of the straight quilting stitches.

The machine has been an absolute pleasure to work with and I have very little negative to say about it if at all.

The things absolutely love about it are:

• the transparent bobbin holder. You can monitor the bobbin thread easily and this is a much better way of judging when you want to fill it up again than for example an automatic bobbin sensor. These things are notoriously unreliable as the bobbin area is always full of dust thus the sensor tends to produce falls readings
• the automatic thread cutter button. Love, love, love it. No more long thread endings hanging about that need extra cutting
• the 28 cm long arm space. This is just fantastic for quilting. The Cranberry Crush Quilt was rather on the large side and didn't cause me any problems whatsoever and I did not use the extra extension table the machine comes with (I don't have space on my desk for this)
• the dual feed foot. I have had no problem at all with this and the machine feeds the fabric correctly when using this foot. The Cranberry Crush Quilt is quilted in zickzack rows just over 1 inch apart and this worked perfect
• the quilting guide. This is a little device one attaches to the dual foot which allows you to quilt without having to mark the pattern (obviously only works with straight lines). This is fantastic and I quilted the entire Cranberry Crush quilt without marking. Lines are not always a 100 % straight or a 100 % the same distance but I would say almost always, besides this would have happened even if I marked them and it adds character in my opinion.
• bobbin threader. You can thread the bobbin with the help of and extra spool pin without having to unthread the main thread.
• the stop/start button. This is fantastic and I have just about stopped using foot control entirely. This is so much better.
• Needles up/down position (I realise this is standard with most machine now)
• the relative smallness of the machine. Although the machine has this fantastic long arm it actually isn't that large and fits neatly onto my desk where I also have a large computer screen on the same desk.
• the machine is not to heavy. It is about 13 kg which sounds heavy but really isn't. I haven't got a lot of space which means I have to move the machine about a bit when I need to cut something and the weight hasn't bothered me at all
• speed control slider. It allows for good control of sewing speed and is right at the front of the machine
• It is quiet, oh so quite.

What I don't like so much:

• Automatic Needle threader. Threading the needle is a bit awkward but I suspect I haven't been doing it right.
• I had a little bit of problems with fabric eating with the 1/4 inch foot. Janome delivered with the machine there  new 1/4 inch foot as they had a lot of problems with the old one. However, the machine still eats fabric on occasion. But really not very often and I suspect that I might not push the fabric far enough through to begin with. This is a machine that is also used for embroidery hence has a fairly wide opening. A friend told me that all of these machines have a slight tendency to eat fabric. But I will keep an eye on this.

Feel free to ask me any questions regarding the machine. I will answer them all but it might take a little while until I get to it.

        And here are a few close-ups.

One Cranberry Crush - done !

Last weekend I finished the Cranberry Crush quilt I started towards the end of last year. Am I happy with it ? You bet. Everything about it delights my eyes. If you have followed my previous posts about it's progress (here, here and here) you will know that I used Anna-Maria Horner's Innocent Crush Range for this quilt and for the solid colourshott from Oakshott fabrics.

Fabric: Innocent Crush from Anna-Maria Horner
Wadding: Quilter's Dream
Quilting: Machine quilt
Quilting thread: Gueterman Sulky 30 in cranberry (1169)
Size: 74 x 74 inches (just under 1.90 m square)

As you can see from the photos the front is a zickzack pattern and the back a 9-patch combination. So basically nothing more than half square triangles and squares. Though one does have to put in some effort to get the zickzack pattern on point. I find that the best method is to cut squares and to sew on both side of the diagonal before cutting the square into two triangles. This ensures minimal stretch of the biased cut fabric.

Cranberry Crush is the first quilt I entirely machine quilted and whilst I will write a thorough review about my first 2 months experience with the Janome Horzion next week, I'd like to say that it has been a blast. I would never have imagined that machine quilting is so easy and that much fun. I always thought it to be hugely difficult. But I really had no problems at all, flatness issues, nothing. I quilted along the zickzack lines about 1.2 inches apart across the entire quilt.

Front (or back ?)

This is also the first time I used colourshott from Oakshott fabrics. The solid is easy to use a little thinner than Kona cotton for example but it is much richer in colour and has a wonderful sheen to it. The entire colour pallet is sumptuous and I am planning to use it a lot more in the future.
The cranberry solid gives the quilt  a really deep and lush feel to it.

Back (or front ?)

Lovely crinkly after it has been washed

 

Binding

 I used the 'Bubble Burst in Rich' for binding as its dark colour adds richness to the mood of the quilt and frames it well.

Storage

Deliberations about sewing machines

Today I want to share with you my research and deliberations about the purchase of a new sewing machine. I am about to buy a new sewing machine as the old one I have is just not up to the job of stitching large amounts of fabric together. On top of that I would like to increase my Quilt output somewhat by machine quilting smaller quilts.
So I have been looking at 3 machine in particular:

• The Bernina Aurora 440QE with BSR

The Pfaff Expression 4.0

• The Janome Memory Craft Horizon 7700 QCP 

 The Pfaff is the least expensive of all with GBP 1155 followed by the Bernina with GBP 1395 and then by the Janome with GBP 1795. But the Janome is reduced to GBP 1295 if one hands in an old machine (or any old piece for that matter).

I now have spent weeks on the net researching all three. At the beginning I favored the Pfaff simply because my mother has had one for 40 years now and it still works and I suppose because it is German (as I am German...) but then I found all over the net the most horrible reviews of the machine. An excellent review thread can be found here. A lot of people had problem with he machine eating fabric and giving all sorts of incorrect warnings and errors.  I found this really disappointing as I loved the fact that it has a long arm and that was one of the most important feature sfor me.

So I went to Direct Sewing Machines in Battersea and had a look at the Pfaff and Bernina. Chris from Direct Sewing Machines is very helpful and most knowledgeable and explained the machines to me. I had a go at the Bernina and found it to be a very accurate machine but also very small with a particular short arm. Chris assured me that it is the best machine on the market and that it has the advantage of still being a bottom loader rather than a top loader. Pfaff also used to be bottom loaders but changed recently to top loaders and he thinks that the quality hasn't been the same since. I also read in several reviews that the production of the machines has been moved out of Germany and that quality has thus suffered.

If one spends that amount of money one has to be sure of the purchase and at this point I wasn't at all. I didn't want to risk the Pfaff with all its teething problems nor did I want to have the small Bernina albeit it being the superiour machine.

So I went home thinking and thinking and a bit more of that. Then I remembered that a fellow quilter in the summer told me about the new Janome 7700. I asked in my local quilt shop what the feedback on the machine was and it seemed to be entirely positive so are the reviews on the net. This is a fairly big machine and weights about 13 kg but it is not to big to handle and it has the much desired long arm plus all stitch variations one can think about. It is a top loader but Chris from Direct Sewing Machines assured me that Janome are the best company when it comes to top loaders. It has a hefty price tag of GBP 1800 but with the part exchange offer it is a more "manageable" price.

So I think I will take the Janome
Does anyone have any experience on the above machines ?

P.S I have meanwhile bought the Janome and posted a review here.