Sew Steady Table Review

Recently I purchased a Sew Steady table for my BERNINA 780.  I had walked by their booth a couple of times at Market and was intrigued.  Their tables enlarge your elevated sewing space quite a bit, making for easier piecing and quilting, and they are portable.  Of course, in an ideal situation we would all have a full size cabinet-sized table with a sunken place to put our machines but - well, I don't know about you - personally I work in the middle of everything.  My workspace is constantly changing; I may have the sewing machine out one day and a graphics tablet the next.  It is one of the things that I love about my job, but, in a limited space shared with family it can be a challenge.

When you order a Sew Steady table you need to specify the machine you work with.  I vacillated between ordering one for my BERNINA 580 and my BERNINA 780, but in the end I chose the 780 because I quilt on it more regularly.

The Sew Steady table mounted on the BERNINA 780

When the table arrived I assembled it and mounted it on the machine.  At first the left side of the table, near the needle, was a little too elevated and the right side near the neck of the machine, was a little too low, but I called Sew Steady and this was easily remedied with a slightly shorter set of legs.

The table has a grid, which you install on the backside of
the plastic.  It has special markings for 1/4" seams.

I was really excited when I got to try the table for the first time this weekend.  I knew it would make quilting larger quilts a bit easier, but I was surprised how much easier it made smaller pieces, like pillows or table toppers.  Virtually the entire piece fit on the table so there was no drag.  Of course, if you were quilting larger pieces you would still want to make sure you had plenty of space behind and the the left of the machine to take the weight of the quilt, but the table does make things easier.  Verdict:  If you are someone who always dragging your machine around the house with you like a security blanket like me (haha) Sew Steady's extended (but still portable) space might be something you would want to consider.

Quilting a design using the Sew Steady table
and the BERNINA Stitch Regulator

Oh, I almost forgot, for you organized sewers out there there is a drawer underneath the table to hold scissors and pins etc.  I need to train myself to use this because I'm a train wreck when I sew and have always have to pick up my mess at the end of the day.

Happy sewing!
Amanda

Easter Table Topper - Part 5

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Hi everyone,

Hope you are having a great weekend.  Here at the instructions to finish your Easter Table Topper...

When we left off it was time to layer the Topper on top of the backing and batting and quilt it.  Just for a second, I'm going to skip ahead and show you some photos of the finished piece so that you can see the details of the quilting. 

I'm not the best quilter but I am working on my skills and the Bernina Stitch Regulator helps a lot!
You'll notice that I big arcs radianting from the center of the topper behidn the bunny and then filled in the arcs with concentric teardrop shapes.  This helps hide the seams where the Dresdens met and helped focus your eye on the center section as whole.

I also marked off arc areas around the eggs and filled them with stippling.  With all that motion I quilted some straight lines between these areas for contrast.

Okay, back to assembly...  Once you have your Easter Table Topper quilted, you are going to apply facing.  Take a large (at least 29'') square of fabric that is bigger than the size of your Topper and fold it in half both way, pressing lightly, to find the center.  This will be your facing.  Using that center mark, draw a big circle (mine was about 12-1/2'') in the center of the fabric square.  Staystitch on the circle line.  Cut out the center of the circle, using a 1/4'' seam allowance.  Clip the seam allowance right up to the stitching line at 1/4'' intervals.  Press the seam back along the line.  Use steam!  The better your pressing line, the easier it will be to finish.

Layer the facing on top of the Easter Table Topper right sides together, centering the design inside the cut out area.  Pin.

Turn the entire unit over and sew all the way around the piece, through all layers, using a 1/4'' seam allowance and your walking foot.

Trim off extra facing fabric.  Clip the 1/4'' seam allowance every 1/4'', right up to - but not through - the seamline.  Clip through all layers - including the batting!  You might have to clip a little extra at the internal corners where the scallops meet.

I'm clearly am not a free motion expert - note the overlapping stitching in the above photo, but you would be hard pressed to see that on the front side of the project.  Small projects are the perfect oppotunities to practice quilting - it doesn't have to be perfect!

Turn the facing to the back.  Press.  (If it doesn't turn well, you might have to turn it back inside out and clip the seam a few more times.)

Slipstitch the facing to the back of the Table Topper, all the way around your circle.  While doing so feel free to insert a label, if desired.

That's it.  Hope everyone has a happy Easter!

Amanda

An Easter Table Topper - Part 1

Today, and one day last week, I went to Sew Much Fun in Gastonia for training on the Bernina 580e.  While there I spotted Flora - an adorable little charm pack by Lauren and Jessi Jung for Moda.  I've been thinking about sewing an Easter table topper using a lot of the features on my machine, and thought that the charm pack was perfect for the little eggs around the edge.

The light yellow print in the background is from Curio, by Basic Grey.  I bought a yard and plan to use it for the background.  (That will be enough for one table topper, but to make a second I'll have to purchase another yard.)

I'm going to incorporate some specialty stitches, fun finishing techniques, and maybe some (optional) embroidery,  I'll be posting every week until Easter, so feel free to follow along.

I want to piece the the eggs, so I started off by matching each charm square with a contrasting charm that complemented it.  I then cut pair into (1-3/4" x 5''), (1-1/4'' x 5"), and (2'' x 5'') strips.  I took the 1-1/4'' strip and sewed the contrasting 1-3/4'' and 2'' strips onto either side of it.  The #57 foot has a 1/4'' training blade that allowed me to sew all 42 squares together in no time.  (There will be only 16 20 eggs on the Table Topper, so I will have enough to make two Toppers if I buy more background fabric.)

I pressed the seams open.  This is key because I plan to stitch some fun specialty stitches down these seams later in the process. 

As you can see from the pieced charms in the background, you will end up with 21 pairs of pieced charm squares - each pair having opposite placement as far as fabrics go.

Happy sewing!
Amanda