The Sewing Sphere
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New machines!

For the past couple of weeks, I had been fighting oil spots on fabric every time I stitched a seam on Janet's old Mitsubishi industrial at the studio and I couldn't figure out why or where they were coming from. (I think all the rubber seals and gaskets are just old and wearing out or something.)

So instead of calling the repair guy and spending $400+ to try to fix it, we decided it was time to upgrade to a Juki DDL-8700 with a quiet servo motor like I have at home. And because I had been planning to eventually get another one for myself to have at the studio anyway, we got two, traded in the Mitsubishi (which covered the delivery charge), and had the guys from Sunny Sewing Machine in Dallas do all the heavy lifting up the studio stairs!

They were delivered yesterday, which was almost exactly four years since I brought my Juki ("Thor" ) home on June 1, 2019 after sewing on the same model at the opera for a few years. It's always interesting to see the tiny changes made from year to year. Thor was made in China, but these two new machines were made in Vietnam. And the ruler printed on the table surface has changed somewhat.

Sadly, that means that Gandalf and his desk came home with me again, but honestly, I prefer sewing on an industrial, especially for work stuff.

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Studio video tour!

I spent the day priming things for paint and then I remembered to shoot a quick video. #SewingStudioBuild

00:03:06
Paint!

I started cutting all the edges while Janet was away yesterday morning. When she got back after lunch, she pulled out a roller and started filling in. I'll put a pic below in the comments. #SewingStudioBuild

00:02:15
Time-lapse floor install (part 2)

We broke for lunch and then came back with a portal ac unit plugged in to an extention cord from the house. Can't wait until they finished hooking up all the electrical and we have the mini split cooling the room for us - it was stupid humid today! #SewingStudioBuild

00:03:11
Random crafting question

Do any of you cross-stitch?

September 09, 2025

I finally finished the quilt for my daughter. I couldn’t take pictures of the entire thing (her room is a disaster zone), but here’s some of the patchwork and the embroidered square I made because I ended up being one short. I did learn that I’m going to need to find a better way to lay out any future quilts that are twin sized or larger, because I had to keep shifting it around the slightly too small area of our basement carpet and the backing ended up getting doubled up in multiple places. By the time I discovered it, I couldn’t bring myself to unpick that much of the quilting, so it’ll have to stay. But I think it’s going to be awhile before I do any more quilts. Between this and the patchwork jeans (which I did end up having to shorten some), I’m feeling burned out on big projects for now. I did cut out a basic knit tee, so hopefully that’ll be enough of a palate cleanser to get me over the lack of motivation to sew that I was feeling by the end of this.

Wawak interfacing is excellent.

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