Nice to meet you, Randy! You sound like me...all over the known world plus some. I like what you wrote about the older sewing machines, they're built like solid rock. And they're works of art. There's beautiful goldleaf stencil on the old Singer in the sewing room, and I've got sticker shock beyond belief from looking at these computerized wonders on the market today. Tomorrow may be the day I take the plunge and pick up the Bernina, tho. Watch them come out with the latest and the greatest ever model on Monday...just my luck! But I need another solid workhorse of a machine. I put 'em through the tortures of heck... :twisted:

Hello, my name is Toni Dorame and I am from Tucson, Arizona. I have lived in the southwest all my life. I am very very new to quilting and I hope you all have the patience for my questions. I took a 3 week quilting class but I still have a lot to learn especially the terminalogy. I would like to know what "echo quilting" is. During our long hot summers, I love to sit by the pool and read my quilting magazines, especially books on fat quarter. I eagerly await a reply from someone.

Hi Toni! Welcome to the group! Echo quilting is simply following an outline pattern. If you appliqued a circle, the first line of quilting would be "in the ditch" around it, the next row would be done an inch or less around that to make an "echo" and continue in equal spaced rows like a quilted bull's eye. It's the style most often seen on Hawaiian or Tahitian style quilts, it reminded the island women of the ocean waves that surrounded them. It's not unique to Hawaii, but it is the most common quilting pattern found there.

Thank you so much Leslee, this is one sure way for me to keep on learning. I plan on continuing to do this, I really , really love it.

Toni

I know you will :lol: ! We're all a nice assortment of Crazy here...just chime on in whenever you like!

Hi. I'm Betty from Texas. I'm interested to know just what you mean by "strip piecing". I have a large accumulation of fabric that I have received from friends and purchased at garage sales and thrift. I also rip up gently used garments for the fabric. The fabrics received from friends are frequently scraps left over from garments that they have made and are odd sizes. Ripping up garments also gives me odd size pieces. I need ideas for using up this mess of fabric. Due to a disability, I cannot use the scissors to cut out shapes. I can and do use a rotary cutter, but it is not easy to cut a block to exact size. My dominant hand trembles. I won't give up quilting! I need new ideas to use up all this fabric.

Talking about a workhorse macnine, while my husband was on an unaccompanied overseas tour of duty a hundred years ago, I bought a Viking portable. It was a plain Jane machine, but it would sew through anything. I wish I had it now. A year or two after my husband came home, he traded my Viking for a machine in a cabinet. By that time I was pregnant again, and he thought the Viking too heavy for me to be lifting. I don't remember the brand name of the machine he traded for. All I remember is that it didn't last long. I'm now using a Singer Schoolastic and am satisfied with it. Will keep using it until they make a sewing machine whose stitches look like hand quilting.

Randy, the confusion of machine shopping finally ended this past Wednesday. I took a deep breath and opted for the Memory Craft 6600P from Janome, and even tho it's only been 3 days I'm totally happy. It's more like furniture than portable (25 lbs!) but aside from taking her to the "learning lessons" I get, I doubt I'll be hauling her to a quilting class. Can't wait for the days to quiet down a bit so I can get some free time!

Hi Leslie:
How wonderful you got a Memory Craft. I have the 8000 and love it. It's a work horse and it does wonderful embroidery and about anything else I might want it to do except wash dishes and the toilet! I took mine to quilt classes a time or two and a friend had a fit because she was afraid I'd bump it and screw up the computer so I went to Wally World and bought a Brother XR-65t for classes. I LOVE the Brother, too. I actually like the decorative stitches from the Brother better than from my Memory Craft. Have fun. Glad you got a new machine. Keep Sewing. Randy

Hi Betty: Glad to have you join us. Strip Piecing is sewing strips of fabric (the same width or of different widths) together the long way then sub-cutting them to desired sizes for blocks. I have made a couple quilts using strip piecing...it goes fast and depending how you lay your sub-cut blocks gives you a nice stair step pattern or even a "woven-looking" pattern. I'm attaching a picture of a quilt I helped a friend make for a foster child. It's strip pieced then all the long (WOF) strips are cut into
2 1/2 inch strips crosswise so you get the pattern "pink, floral, white,dark floral" as in the picture I'm attaching. Hope this helps you. Keep on Sewing.
Randy