Quilter’s Dream for my Bernina 830
11.05.09
It’s here at last! The Horn Quilter’s Dream cabinet for my Bernina 830 that is.
The good news this morning – the cabinet had arrived at Sew from the Heart. The not so good news – both Noel and Keith (SftH’s amazing tech team) are on vacation so it couldn’t be delivered until next week when they are back. Now that was a problem! And every problem has a solution, right? I can drive a van, and I’m pretty strong. So all I needed was someone else with some muscle and the willingness to put it to good use. And into the store walked John – an 830 owner with muscle and the willingness to help!
This thing comes in a REALLY big box! Weighing in at 180 lbs, it’s not an easy task to move it around.
Anyone paying attention would have noticed that one side of the box had written on it in pretty big letters: “Open Here”. It took us a while to figure this out – having already opened the box on the other side and removed all of the packaging materials, of which there was a lot!
Finally it’s out, and all the packaging has been removed. 60″ wide and 19.5″ deep at it’s smallest.
With the back flap up, it extends to 39″ deep.
With the front flap up as well, there is an extra 16″ of depth – just where you need it most for quilting the larger quilts. This is a neat design – open the draw and an extension table fits right on top.
If you’re going to do embroidery, the machine sits right on the top, with the airlift table in the top position.
Push down on the machine, and the table lowers to position number 2. Now everything is level for regular sewing and quilting. A cutout (that bit is still to come) fills in the gap around the machine so that a continuous surface is created. Changing the bobbin is going to be interesting – I’ll have to see how visibility is when my cutout arrives.
Push down again and the airlift table goes all the way to the bottom. The machine is now nicely stored – with a full sized insert to fill the hole.
Now I’m really ready for some serious sewing and embroidery!
Outline Design is found as the 3rd button up from the bottom on the Digitize toolbar. It’s only active if you have an existing object selected!
Create a new design, or insert an existing design into a new embroidery file. I have chosen to use “Motif 1 Small” from my Heather Feather CD, rotated by 45 degrees clockwise, with the positioning square removed. I placed the design in a jumbo hoop so that there is plenty of space to play with around the design!
A satin stitch border has been added, and then everything was selected before applying Outline Design with:
Look what happens when you check Outline Holes!
In this example, I applied Outline Design twice to the original design. Make sure to group the whole design, including the border, to make it easy to select everything for the second application of Outline Design.
The sewing machine box is about 30″ wide, 17″ deep and 24″ tall. No small task moving this baby around! First out is the removable table, then some manuals and other bits and pieces, and finally the machine itself is revealed.
I was going to put it on the portable cutting table, but common sense prevailed. The cutting mat was moved over to the portable cutting table so that the Bernina 830 could have pride of place – and a good deal of stability – on the main cutting table.
Accessories
The white cone has a really good purpose – I just can’t remember what it is right now! From the left, the mirror for use when threading the bobbin for embroidery; a pair of tweezers; needle housing “screw driver”; stylus for the beautiful big screen; multi-purpose tool; cleaning brush; seam ripper; and some oil!
Bernina 8 series jumbo bobbins are much bigger than the bobbins for the other Bernina machines. They hold 40% more thread – so you can do a lot more stitching!
Every sewing machine needs a slide-on table, and the Bernina 830 really delivers! Nothing can beat a set-in cabinet for the ultimate sewing experience, but this slide-on table offers and excellent workspace – as well as support for the hoop when doing embroidery.
There’s a pretty sophisticated dust cover included with the Bernina 830, with a hole for the handle to show through and a number of pockets. So far I haven’t figured out what might go in these pockets, but they are there if you need them!
Embroidery Module
Finally out of the box, and the embroidery module is ready to be attached to the sewing machine. It’s a pretty easy connection – lift up the left hand side of the embroidery module and tuck the two extensions on the right hand side into the sewing machine. A good solid surface is required to hold the machine to make sure that all contacts are made.
The sliding table is designed to be used with the embroidery module. It slides underneath the embroidery arm – and when installed it provides support for the hoop, especially the jumbo hoop.
On the other side of the room is the sofa – which hasn’t been sat on in months due to the fabric that is piled up on it – and in the corner are the wardrobes that contain my fabric stash. Heather’s scooter is propped up against the french doors. We’ve been getting out and about on the scooters since the weather cooled down – but you can probably tell that none of us (that would be Heather, Jasmine and myself) are very good at putting things away when we are finished using them!
After picking all the kid stuff up off the floor and transfering it to the playroom, the sofa was moved down a bit and the fabric stash wardrobes were moved to their new home – in the bedroom. That created enough space to move the portable cabinet minus shelf extensions for the 200.
This kitchen cabinet cutting table is one heavy piece of furniture, even when empty. It is, of course, full of stuff, and I was not about to empty it, so after a good deal of pushing and shoving, it finally found it’s new resting place.
I love open spaces – but they don’t usually stay open for very long! This is the space that the new cabinet that fits my 830 is going to fill. As of today, it has been shipped, so hopefully it will arrive on my doorstep of Monday or Tuesday next week.
The cutting table is fully functional for cutting – not a thing on top of the 24″x36″ cutting mat. The storage underneath is organized (you’re going to have to take my word on that since I didn’t take a photo!), and underneath the whole thing are all the quilts that are waiting very patiently to be quilted.
The 200 is ready and waiting if I should need to use it. And it’s also ready for Heather to use if she should get the urge. All the accessories are neatly arranged on the shelf which was moved over from the other side of the room.
Quilt Market takes place in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston. When Market opens, you see all the beautiful booths showcasing their products. Everything is in it’s place, the carpets are laid and there isn’t a storage box to be seen. The day before was a different story, that I would like to share with you today!
Noon on Thursday saw the Aurifil team waiting for their crates to arrive. A frustrated message went out on Facebook later that night – the crates had finally arrived at around 8pm, and a whole day of set up had been lost. Since I had no plans until my School house at 4:20pm on the Friday, I offered to lend a hand in helping them to get set up. Aurifil is after all my favorite thread!
This is where I decided to make myself useful – by going off to find some tools! Fortunately, the Brewer booth (who was hosting me) was just up the aisle, in even more chaos at that point in the day – with a tool box full of tools! So one fixed wrench and one adjustable wrench later, followed shortly by a hammer and a mallet, and all of the bolts were finally removed.
From this point on, a remarkable transformation happened. Gradually thread stands emerged from the crate, and thread found it’s way onto the stands. A couple of beautiful quilts were hung on the (newly clean) walls, and the most gorgeous 1kg cones of Aurifil thread found their way into various places for decoration. Table cloths covered the tables, and a beautiful booth had been born.
I’m excited to be going to Quilt Market in Houston for the first time. On Friday I will be doing a “schoolhouse” called “Embroidered Applique for Beginners”. It’s a great opportunity for me to show store owners and their representatives all about what I do, and give them a brief overview of how to do it. I have 30 minutes to talk – and enough to say to fill up about 3 hours! A few lucky people will be able to walk away with a ready made sample – a couple from my Jewels in Chocolate CD, a couple from my new Hearts CD.
This summer has been my time to fall in love with silk! It has also been my time to fall in love with using cotton thread for embroidered applique, specifically Aurifil Cotton Mako. This is not a “normal” choice for embroidery, so up until now, there has not been a thread chart available for it in the Bernina Embroidery Software. Now there is!
My plane landed at Cleveland Hopkins airport on time at about 20 minutes past 2pm. Down to the baggage claim to see my suitcase full of quilts sitting waiting for me. What a relief!
Close to the end of the day, everyone there had already done their thing, so the atmosphere was cheerful and relaxed. Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero was a familiar face, and also rushing out the door so not much time to do anything other than say “Hi! Bye!”. It did mean that she freed up a table, so I got to empty all my stuff out and start to get organized. That’s my green suitcase in the center of the pic, with my table in the back right hand corner.
I had decided to use the designs from my newest embroidered applique collection, the Hearts CD, stitched out on Silk Dupioni with Aurifil Cotton Mako 50 weight thread.
Pokey Bolton, the host of Quilting Arts TV was finally done with her part of filming for the day, and was also busy in the Green Room, working on a project. And borrowing my rotary cutter!
Jeanne set up the 830 while Katherine helped me to bring all of my “stuff” onto the set. Where to put everything was the big question of the moment! I’m very glad that I had way too much stuff to show off. A lot of it didn’t appear – but Kathie Stull, the producer, helped us to choose the things that would show off best.
I was surprised how dark the rest of the studio is, and also how quiet! I think there were two camera guys, Ray off to the right of the set, and another guy straight in front doing all the closeups – from above! Billy, the floor director, was off to the left with a monitor to show what was being filmed. I think there was someone lurking at the back of the room, but have no idea what they were doing. A sound guy appeared a couple of times – first to get me hooked up with a mic, and then after we started filming to adjust the sound so that I could be heard!
I got to the gym twice this week – and would have made it a third time on Saturday morning, except a friend called just as we were about to leave and suggested a playdate at the train park (the McCormick Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale, AZ). We decided to take advantage of the cool after the previous night’s storm to go and play – although it did get a little steamy later in the morning!
The quilting on the Hearts quilt is finished – it’s now just waiting to be bound. Pam and I were able to stitch out all 6 of the small hearts and 2 each of the 6 medium sized hearts in a very productive day on Tuesday. So this week there is a lot of finishing to do, as well as quilting the Jewels in Silk quilt.
