THE NEWEST MEMBER

Something very exciting happened in the sewing room this week: we welcomed a new member whose name is Q'nique 14+.  She came in two big, heavy boxes:

The flat box holds the table.  The bigger box holds "Q".  She arrived on Thursday evening and wasn't "deboxed" until Friday, table first.  I had a few issues assembling the table but managed to solve them.  Later that day I "deboxed" Q herself.  She's pretty impressive, big, heavy and strong.

The first job was to slide her into the table opening and that proved impossible just then.  I huffed and puffed but couldn't make it work.  There just wasn't enough clearance between the top of her legs (you can't see them in this picture) and the table.  After a sweaty try of about 1/2 hour I gave up and took a shower.  I emailed the friend who sold her to me about the troubles I was having, also sent a message for help on the website.  They will get back to me on Monday morning.

Then on Saturday I had a call from R. and he could come and look at the problem.  I had already figured out that something needed to be taken off her front legs.  Unfortunately the directions for set up did not mention that.

R. came over and the whole thing was taken care of.  Thanks!  So here she is, all set up in front of the window overlooking the back yard.  Too much light coming in the window to get a decent picture, so I pulled down the shade.

And HERE SHE IS!!!

She is strictly for machine quilting and has no feed dogs.  She can be set up on a large quilting frame, but I don't have room for that.  I've done a few trial runs especially to regulate the tension.  The directions say to adjust the tension every time you change threads, so I'd better get used to it.

There are several very good videos on YouTube by Leah Day showing how to use the 14+, and I watched some today.  Then I did some experimental sewing and it went well.  I will do some practice quilting before tackling some of the projects lined up for finishing.

By the way, those two dark sticks behind her are not part of the machine.  There's a small inkle loom on the window sill.