How to Service Your Sewing Machines

I often surprised how quilters don't realize the importance of cleaning and taking care of their sewing machine. May be they forget, may be they don't know or they are scared to do it. I don't even dare to mention the issue of changing needles...
I thought it's time to encourage you to tackle this "cleaning-the-sewing machine" issue and as a first step, you can read the advices of a sewing machines' expert, Mr. Ruud Rooijacker, dealer of the Bernina Sewing Machines from Katwijk. He is in this business since 23 years or I should say even longer as he follows a family tradition, his knowledge is in his blood. His father opened his sewing machine shop 57 years ago. Today Mr. Rooijacker owns a beautiful, light show room with all the Bernina models.
He was very happy to give you advices on how to maintain your machine at home and when you should take it to the specialist for a service.

How often do you need to service your machine?
- It depends on the usage of the sewing machine. If you sew every day on your machine, you should service it once a year. If you use once a week, but oil it on a regular base, your machine needs a service in every 2-3 years.
When you should oil your sewing machine?
- If you can listen to your machine, you can tell from the sound, that it's time to oil it, provided that it's a machine made of steel parts, like Bernina.
How to clean and oil your sewing machine?
- You can lay your machine on its back. It is easier to reach the hook.
- Take out the hook and clean the hook with a brush and a piece of cloth;
- Clean the inside part with a vacuum cleaner;
- Lower the feed dog, take out the needle plate;
- Clean with cotton buds;
- Put 1-2 drops oil on the side of the axle of the hook.




Why do you need to change needles very often?
- It is easy mathematics. Just think about the distance of the take up lever from the bottom to the top, with an average stitch length of 3-4 mm-s. How many times goes the lever up and down, lifting the needle and feeding the thread through the needle? So it is very important to always choose a good quality thread with a good quality needle and always the right needle for the right project.

If you would like to learn more about taking care of your sewing machine or considering buying a new one - may be a Bernina - , you can visit the "Rooijackers naaimachines" shop in Katwijk. Mr. Rooijacker and his colleagues are very happy to give you a "tour". You might end up joining the happy group of "Bernina girls", just like us and our students.

Little Amsterdam Sleep-Over

Maria has been very busy keeping you updated, but now it’s my turn to write something (Leslie).

Yesterday I visited the quilt shop in Haarlem: “Irma’s Sampler”. It is a very nice shop with a very nice selection of fabrics and I hadn’t been for some time. Haarlem is easy to get to either by train or car, and if you go by car there are several car parks within easy walking distance of the shop. Irma’s Sampler is right next door to the Frans Hals Museum, so you can easily take your family along and leave them there whilst you spend your time more usefully choosing fabric. There are plenty of very nice coffee/lunch places around, so if you go with friends and have lunch afterwards you will still have the opportunity to go back to the shop afterwards (you know, for that one thing you couldn’t justify at first and think about over lunch and then decide you really must get because it probably won’t be there next time you visit!)

My reason for going (apart from the obvious) was to talk to the owner Gré Koopman (lady on photo) about hanging Little Amsterdam in the shop. There were quite a few ladies in the shop (some of them for the Hundertwasser workshop) and none of them had been to the European Quilt Championships in Waalre, so had not seen the quilt before. And that is exactly the point. By hanging Little Amsterdam at Irma’s Sampler people will see her who otherwise would not have had the opportunity. Funny it was the day of the Hundertwasser workshop, in which you also make houses, but don’t have to be careful about your ¼” seam allowance and can make the houses as crooked as you like!

Anyway, Little Amsterdam will be at Irma’s Sampler until 22nd March, when we will get her back again in time for the Patchwork & Quiltdagen in Rijswijk (scroll down linked site for English text).

Go visit her at Irma’s Sampler, where the pattern book will also be for sale, or if you can wait that long at Rijswijk.

Leslie

Hanneke's Quilt for Her Daughter

This time I would like to introduce you Hanneke, our friend from the IWC quilting group. She just finished her quilt, what she made for her daughter, Katy. I took some pictures of this beautiful, colorful quilt during our quilting session at the IWC office. Hanneke kindly offered to write about her inspiration for the quilt.

Katy's African childhood quilt by Hanneke Wood

"I had been thinking for some time about a quilt for Katy to take to University with her -while we were visiting the School of Stitched textiles last summer (I am doing an online City and Guilds course with them) Katy spotted and fell in love with a border fabric, warm colours and African people and I found an equally enchanting fabric with African mothers and babies (both Timeless Treasures but discontinued I think). To complete the challenge Katy found a very bright and vibrant green batik to include in the quilt.



Where to start - we poured over books, looking for inspiration, and finally used some ideas from Roberta Horton's The fabric makes the quilt (Lafayette, 1995)- her design concepts were particularly helpful, "Repetition makes things go together" , "It's important that the line is'nt straight" , "Don't centre", "Keep the eye moving" and "If it's too big, cut it off. If it's too small, add on to it."
I explored my stash and 'auditioned' lots of fabrics, a continuing process in the making of this quilt as it evolved! I used lots of batiks, some 'klimt' fabrics (Makower ) whose colours were perfect, and some of 'Jabulisa's' African printed fabrics. I then started my making 'wonky blocks' centred around the themed fabrics, and the quilt started to grow. After much rearrangement, the quilt top was complete, bordered with a deep red batik from Evy at Quilterspalet here in The Hague and I chose to back it with a soft checked flannel - I asked North Sea Quilters to machine quilt it for me, which Marybeth has done beautifully, quilting in the ditch and including a border pattern inspired by the recurring zigzagging triangles in the African fabrics.

The warm vivid colours, and the liveliness of this quilt remind me of Africa where
Katy spent the first three years of her life. Absolutely the best quilt to accompany her on the next step in her life!"


Thank you Hanneke for sharing your story behind the quilt. We were lucky in the IWC patchwork group to enjoy looking at and quilting beside this cheerful quilt for a while and we didn't let Hanneke to take it off from the wall until it was time to go home.
I wish Katy that this quilt will bring her the comfort and the warmth of home when she her new life at university.




Maria
www.northseaquilters.com

Carol's First Quilts

We would like to use this blog also to create a forum for our friends, clients to show and introduce their patchwork to other quilters. If you would like to tell about your quilt, please send us the photo of your patchwork and your story behind the quilt.

This time I would like to show you the photos of Carol's quilt. She is an expat quilter, living in The Hague and this is - better say - these are her first quilts. Can you imagine that she just started to quilt and she made immediately two big quilts? These two identical quilts were her Christmas presents for her daughters. It is a beautiful, true scrap quilt. In the quilt Carol cleverly incorporated fabrics, she collected during her traveling/posting, like African fabrics. Look at the beautiful color of her quilts. The blues and the orange accents work really well.
We quilted them on the new Statler Stitcher, using an overall pattern of "Baroque swirl."

Carol's daughters really loved their special Christmas present. I'm sure they will be happy to snuggle under the quilts in their dormitory and they'll be very proud of their mum.


Carol's daughters wrapped in the quilt and the two quilts together

The back of the quilts, quilted on the Statler Stitcher, pattern Baroque swirl

Maria
www.northseaquilters.com

Little Amsterdam Course Started

Yesterday we had the first lesson of the ten-weeks course of Little Amsterdam in the new studio. We began by focusing on tips and advises on the design elements of the quilt, than we choose the fabrics for the houses and started to make the bases for the regular houses. The three hours passed very quickly and it was already time to write down the homework. Everybody enjoyed the class and are looking forward to the next Tuesday.

Maria
www.northseaquilters.com

Long-waited Patchwork Weekend in Hamburg

Since autumn we were looking forward to this weekend, where finally we could enjoy quilting without the distraction of the worry about cooking, cleaning and other every day's job. So Last Friday we hit the road and after about 5 hours drive we arrived in Hamburg at Adreas Wolf's patchwork shop the Quilthouse to attend a weekend course with Ilka Rave and learn how to make a quilted jacket. After the warm welcome of Ilka and Andreas (and of course the delicious cakes) we immediately jumped into work. First we choose the wool for our jacket, which I found quite difficult, as Andreas has a good selection of beautifully colored, soft wools and I couldn't make up my mind. (Of course on the last day we couldn't resist to buy another piece). Than we wandered around the shop to find fabrics for the strips and the inside of the jacket and find more treasures, like the deep colored hand-dyed fabrics. After cutting our strips the "working" day was over. We walked in the neighborhood, did some window shopping and had a nice dinner.
Saturday we worked really hard the whole day, we only stopped for lunch and "cake/tea" break. Ilka was always there to explain, help, give advices. She is a wonderful teacher. In the evening after a walking tour along the lake we had a nice dinner in a Greek Restaurant. Sunday we continued on sewing and by the afternoon we were ready to wear our jackets. Only few things needs to be done (sewing the bindings by hand, the final touch). I think our sewing machines were releaved that we finished the machine sewing, the eight layers of fabrics (four of them wool) was a little bit too much for them, but they managed it really well. These Bernina and Husquarna Viking sewing machines are reliable "friends" for us since many years.

As to the jackets, they are beautiful, see for yourself!

Thanks for the lovely patchwork weekend Ilka and Andreas!

Working in the morning... working in the evening.

Maria and Leslie and the back of their jackets


Marybeth and Ilka and the back of their jackets

Maria
http:www.northseaquilters.com

"Picasso in The Hague" Exhibition

At the moment we are quite busy with making our plan for the year 2008. It would be very boring for you to read about that. So I thought I would draw your attention to an exhibition, I visited during the holidays.
I think for us quilters it is important to get inspirations from other art forms, learn from them. You never know when you find your big idea.
I went with my guests to the Gemeente Museum in The Hague where you can see the Exhibition " Picasso in Den Haag" or shall I say Picasso in The Hague. The big part of the collection came from the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and it gives an overview of Picasso's entire carrier. The earliest work at the exhibition is a sketch, made of his father by Picasso, when he was 18. You can also see his early drawings and paintings from his early years in Paris, work from his Cubist phase, his Classical Period (like Harlequin with Folded Hands), the period of the Spanish Civil War and World War II. One of the amazing exhibits is the whole 100-print "Vollard Suite" in its entirety, which he created between 1930-1937. It was named after its publisher, the French art dealer and critic, Ambroise Vollard. The artist visualizes his obsessions, using neo-classical and classical subjects, like the artist's obsession with his model (Pygmalion), the transformation of the artist (Minotaur). This is also a tribute to his lover, Marie-Therese, who inspired him in creation of this masterpiece. I myself, admired and was attracted to the fine lines of his drawings in this series. Living my "obsession to colors" period I was also impressed by the colors of some of his other works and took a picture of them. May be one day when I'm looking for a color scheme.....

Bullfight, 1935

The "Vert-Galant" Park, 1944

Head of Woman with Hat, 1962

I hope you have a chance to visit the exhibition. While you are there in the Gemeente Museum don't miss out the other exhibitions, like the Rozenburg, if you are interested in porcelain. But let's leave something for the next blog.

Maria
www.northseaquilters.com