I’ve had a lot of questions today about the hoop sizes needed to stitch out the GO! Be Dazzled Block of the Month designs. Here’s the scoop!

If you have a Bernina Jumbo Hoop for the 830 you are in excellent shape. The central diamond blocks will each stitch out in one hooping and the square blocks will each stitch out in two hoopings.

If you have a Mega Hoop (150mm x 400mm) or equivalent (Pfaff and Viking both have hoops that are 200mm x 360mm) you are also in great shape. The central diamond blocks will each stitch out in one hooping and the square blocks will each stitch out in 3 or 4 hoopings.

If you have a Large Oval Hoop (145mm x 255mm) or equivalent then you are in good shape – as long as you have a lot of patience. The central diamond blocks will each require two or three hoopings while some of the square blocks will require up to 9 hoopings.

Placement is super easy, with detailed instructions on the CD for how to mark the fabric for each block and align these marks with placement lines that should be stitched out directly onto the stabilizer in the hoop. Be sure to read the instructions before you start stitching!

Placement of applique shapes is also super easy! Once your background fabric has been put in place in the hoop, the next thing to stitch out is placement lines for each applique shape. Remove the hoop from your embroidery module while you fuse the prepared applique shapes in place. Some of the designs have layered appliques, so you will need to do 2 or 3 sets of placement lines each followed by fusing shapes in place.

Another question that came in today was about the thread colors used. Here’s the scoop on that!

Isacord thread was used for GO! Be Dazzled, in the following colors:

• 0811 Candlelight
• 2508 Hot Pink
• 2715 Pansy
• 4620 Jade
• 1010 Toast
• 2506 Cerise
• 2810 Orchid
• 4423 Marine Aqua
• 2550 Soft Pink
• 2510 Roseate
• 2830 Wild Iris
• 6011 Tamarack

If you want to do your own colors, here’s a formula I have been using with the students in my Block of the Month classes:

Choose 3 different fabrics – in the case of GO! Be Dazzled there are Regal Purple, Cerise and Daffodil from the Crystals collection by Benartex. For GO! Be Dazzled Too the fabrics used are Hunter, Sage and Cream from the Crystals collection by Benartex.

Now choose 2 or 3 threads to match each of the 3 fabrics, e.g. 2 or 3 different shades of yellow to match the Daffodil. This will give you 6-9 thread colors.

Now choose 2 or 3 threads that contrast with the fabrics. For GO! Be Dazzled, these were two shades of turquoise, and a bright lime green. If your 3 fabrics are different shades of the same color, then choose 2 or 3 threads of the complementary color. Check your color wheel if in doubt!

Hope this helps to answer some of the questions you may have. More coming on GO! Be Dazzled in the months to come. Feel free to drop me a line if you have more questions.

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!

When you’re home alone on a Sunday afternoon and there are two big boxes containing a brand new Bernina 830 sewing and embroidery machine sitting in your living room/quilting studio, what else are you going to do but unpack the boxes, even if the cabinet you’re waiting for hasn’t arrived?

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 Bernina 830 comes with 5 (beautifully big) bobbins – one of which is already in the machine; 10 feet, all of which have an optical eye, 2 of which work with the dual feed system; and a whole bunch of other things!

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

The embroidery module comes in a separate box. Taking the lid off reveals a tray containing 3 embroidery hoops (small, medium and large oval hoops), a USB cable, the #26 foot for embroidery, hoop clips, a box of literature and a CD.

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.

This machine is now ready for action!!!

The biggest issue now is what to do with the boxes! Maybe it would make a good coffee table… watch this space for more news on that!

Last week I finally got my very own dream sewing and embroidery machine – a new Bernina 830. As well as being a masterpiece of Swiss engineering, this is one big sewing machine! Add the embroidery module onto it and it’s even bigger. The jumbo hoop (an extra – but very essential in my opinion!) has the largest embroidery area of any hoop currently available for the home embroidery market.

When I brought the machine home it became very clear to me that I was going to have to do some rearranging in my quilting studio – which is also my living room!

Tuesday morning of this week – this is what my studio looked like:

My Bernina artista 200 is in the corner on a portable cabinet that has been extended on the left and behind by the addition of a couple of shelves. The cutting table is a free standing kitchen cabinet from IKEA – the perfect height for working at! It has been buried under “stuff” for a really long time. The portable cutting table gets moved around – and when it is open and in the middle of the room, there’s not a whole lot of space to do anything else.

Even the 830 box has “stuff” on top of it and is surrounded by bears, blankies and Jasmine’s new scooter.

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.

Now there is enough space where the portable cabinet came from to move the cutting table into the corner.

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.

I have found that if you contemplate a “problem” long enough, a solution will emerge. The “problem” in this case was what to do with all the fabric and other stuff that was burying my sofa.

The solution was to organize the contents of the cutting table cupboards which made plenty of room for the fabric which is now neatly folded, with all the small scraps saved in a zip-lock bag. The added bonus is that my stabilizer is now also organized and easily accessible!

Two mornings of work, and this is what my studio now looks like:

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 Bernina 830 has been moved into position – waiting for its’ cabinet to arrive before I unpack it. Although with the weekend coming up, that might not last!

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.

The sofa is finally back in action as a place to sit – and I did actually sit on it for a few minutes this afternoon! There is even a pillow that came out of the cutting table where it was taking up way too much space!

It’s good to know that my vacuum cleaner still works – not a scrap of fabric or a piece of thread to be seen on the carpet – and I can guarantee that will not last for very long!