We are asked to do all sorts of things by our customers, not just quilting.

I spent a lot of time last week completing a doll's bassinet, which was interesting.  A lady made the green one for her daughter, and never found enough time to make one for her second daughter, so she asked if we could do it.  It's not something I would normally do, but I agreed to have a go.  We can't have two little girls fighting over one lonely bassinet.

The pattern is a Rosalie Quinlan one, but I haven't been able to find a link to it.Cute, isn't it?

There was no time for sewing this week, I was in designing mode in all my free time, plus there have been customer quilts on the Statler constantly.  I did take some time to put together a shelf unit for my paperwork and a new table for my office equipment, which is in my bedroom.  Alas, now it feels like I'm sleeping in my office, not working in my bedroom!  But everything is much neater and more organised.

I did manage to make my design wall larger, using the cardboard box from the shelf unit.  I just taped it in place between the two display boards, and covered it all with the polar fleece.

 It works well, and here is the finished picture of my scrap quilt. 

I know I said it was going to have a pieced border, but it absolutely refused to have anything but this material.  I will keep all the HSTs for another project.


All the talk about my sewing machines in the last post made me go look on Ebay again.  They should have a 'Ban Me' button you can click, so there are no more impulse purchases.....

A friend of ours has a Bernina 730, from the'60s, and she constantly works the poor thing.  She used it to sew metre high stacks of terry towelling bibs for an old folk's home, thick denim patches on her hubby's jeans, more than 40 applique numbers on the back of footy jerseys. Plus all her quilting and patchwork.  The 730 just did it all, without complaint, and it has lovely sleek retro lines to boot.  I think I fell in love with her machine the first time I saw it at our patchwork group, and I've wanted one of my own ever since.

I already have two of them, one from a school and one from Ebay.  The school one is so battered, lots of paint missing, and the motor blew up, so it's not functioning.  The other one needs some TLC to run properly, and it smells overpoweringly of old oil, like it's been stored in a garage.  Not nice.  So......., I succumbed to the temptation last week, and bought another one on Ebay.

  Don't you just love the onboard storage for cotton reels and bobbins and accessories.

 Cosmetically it's almost perfect, but the needle position lever is stuck. I will go on trying to find a fix for that, but it sews a beautiful straight stitch anyway, just too wide for a 1/4" seam.  Surely, out of the three I can build a perfect 730!