I have died and gone to Quilting Heaven!

It has arrived, My wife picked this out and bought it for me (she was tired of me grumbling about my old machine). She was looking for the best machine she could find in a budget that I was willing to afford. (At HMQS she tried to buy me a 3-4,000 dollar machine and I would not let her, mostly because I am afraid of myself and I think that is way too much at this stage in my game, after all only been quilting for 7 months now)  But I beat my last machine to the point that it would just not cut it any more.  For those that can't read the picture its a Janome Memory Craft 6300.  One of the biggest selling points for us was that it was bigger (more quilting space) and stronger then my old machine. 

After opening the box I found this child? Wait hum he must have climbed in there after I pulled out the machine.

Top and bottom you can see the size comparison of the 2 machines.  The space under the neck is a inch taller and 5 inches wider then my old machine.  That will help a lot now that I am getting more confidence and going bigger with my quilts.  My Soldiers Star almost killed me trying to wrestle its size (and its not really that big) though the neck of this thing.  I was echo quilting the star and kept turning and turning and twisting and dang was it hard.

I finally sat down an read the instruction Manual (yes such a un-manly thing to do), but I figured after spending a grand on this machine I would feel terrible if I broke it before my wife got home from work.

Last night while waiting for the machine to not show up, I cut out the 2 above blocks.  I am happy to say that at first sewing (only 2 - 12 1/2 inch blocks) it sews even better then I could have hoped.

One thing I though was cute the tools and parts box that came with this new toy of mine has a little foot holder to keep the feet and parts sorted.  It came with all the 101 feet that I have no clue what the heck are for.  It also came with a walking foot (they called it a Even Feed Foot) maybe its me that calls it the wrong name (its the bottom left foot in the box above).  Another item it came with and I did not know about was it came with a Quilting bar (a bar that connects to the foot and you can set it for a set distance and it rides on top of the quilt while quilting so you can even space your lines). I had bought one of these things (OK 2, of them, the first one I bought never fit) that connected to the back of my old walking foot to do the same thing its how I made my spiral in my granny gone wild quilt.  While actually 2 of them, one for the normal foot and one for the walking foot.  One other extra is a cloth guide (similar idea as quilt bar, but its a metal plate with screw that connects to needle plate.

And last but not least, I am happy it came with its own extension table.  I was so worried I would have to buy another and go though the work of finding one that fit my machine (this is yet another item I bought twice.  lucky for me I ordered it from a store that said they would deal with sending it back if they got the wrong one which they did the first time for my old machine).  So the machine can sew a straight line, what else can it do.

Any one that has read some of my old posts can remember all my frustration in FMQ.

In the past every time I had tried to FMQ it got jammed up or just plain sucked.

Not sure if any one remembers this thing, but the last 3 pictures are one of my few Fugly Runners I made but never finished quilting. (I have been holding this in reserve to practice FMQ)  I have to say I had fun.  I was able to move right to left and up and down and quilted 2 long rows of my runner.  If you look close my quilting skill is lacking, but now that my machine does not jam up I can practice and put another tool into my quilting tool box. I can now start to attempt some FMQ.  I think I hear the FMQ project calling my name.  I have been whimpering every time I saw some one talk about FMQ as my old machine just could not figure it out.  One fun thing I found with this machine is I can drop the feed feet and of course it has a nice Darning Foot (what the heck is darning any way?)  It has a great FMQ foot and it works.  While I wait an hour for my wife to get off work, I will go find me some video's on FMQ and see If I can try something cool.

Here is a picture of the darning foot.  Any way as you can tell I am very happy.  I have only had this machine now for 3 hours.  Just think of what I am going to come up with next?  Good thing I have a few quilt tops in the box that I can baste and then try some quilting tomorrow.