Oh My! Santa Came Early!

Where to start?

A couple of months ago Mick suggested something that could be a final special gift from Mum.  It wasn’t something I had thought of, but having had a little think, why not?

A bit of work was required before anything could happen.

This has been the usual state of my sewing room for the best part of twelve months.  Not good and not conducive to any actual sewing or quilting taking place.  ie. Not one single quilt has been quilted in 2025.

I’ve already shared some photos of the start of my clean up here.

Then there was more cleaning out.  It’s a very long time since it has looked like this.

But there’s more:

Or, rather less.

Yes, it was time to farewell Monique.  I haven’t been using her and I suppose I am too much of a perfectionist and wasn’t all that happy with what I was doing and didn’t have the confidence to do any free motion quilting.  Having said that, she was the perfect entry level machine to give me the basics of long arm quilting and served me well in that respect.

So, what was to fill that space?

Meet “Elly May”.  Her name was inspired by her model name of Elite and a very slight nod to Mum’s name.

She is another Grace Q’Nique.  This time with a 21 inch throat, a new frame and is computer driven.  She has so much potential.

The automated quilting is a very steep learning curve and I have been watching lots of YouTube tutorials, which have been invaluable.

I feel so very blessed to be able to be the owner of such a beauty and look forward to having lots of fun with her.

Hopefully, that pile of unquilted flimsies will all be completed quilts by the end of 2026, if not before.  That would be so good.

Here is my very first bit of quilting on her.  I have done a bit more since then and will share that separately.