Hi ,

This week's new free motion quilting design was inspired by the beautiful metal work I saw every day growing up. My dad was a blacksmith and always hammering and twisting metal to create beautiful sculptures and fences.

This design begins with a single spiraling "wire" line, then you echo around the shape multiple times to expand the design and fill more space within your quilt.

Ever catch yourself wishing for more light within your sewing machine? For years I struggled with poorly lit sewing machines and tried to find fixes with every type of floor and table light imaginable.

Then I found this set of special LED sewing machine lights and fell in love. I easily installed the 4 inch strip of lights into the arm of my sewing machine where it brightened up the whole area, making it much easier to see while sewing and quilting.

What I love most about these lights is their perfect design. The lights are slightly bendable so you can install them even in the arm of a curved machine.

Unlike most sewing machine lights that act like a spotlight in a single area, this LED light strip brightly illuminates a much wider space. Best of all, the lights operate with a single switch that you can place conveniently near your sewing machine switch.

Last week I shared a post titled Don't Buy Your Kid a Toy Sewing Machine which was a bit of a rant against the cheap, plastic toy machines that aren't worth the box they are packed in.

I was once given a cheap machine like this when I was around 14 years old. I can remember well the total letdown of that little toy machine - all the parts were cheap plastic and the foot attachment was so wobbly stitching a straight seam was absolutely impossible.

A machine should never be described as flexible, but that is exactly what that flimsy plastic machine was! Click Here to read the rest of my rant on toy sewing machines.

Of course, as soon as I shared this post, several quilters commented to let me know that toy sewing machines weren't ALL bad, or at least they were once built much better, once upon a time.

This lead me to researching different machines and then off to Ebay to see what was available. Yes, after telling you straight up not to buy a toy sewing machine, I went a bought myself vintage toy Singer!

This beautiful little machine is a Singer 20, one of the most popular toy sewing machines ever built from 1910 - 1970. It's a hand crank operated chainstitch sewing machine that only requires one top thread (no bobbin).

The design is extremely simple, requiring very few parts which means very few things to break, so even though this machine is between 50 - 75 years old, it still runs beautifully.

So I guess my original toy sewing machine post needs an addition - it's perfectly fine to buy your child a toy sewing machine, so long as it is a vintage toy Singer in good condition! As stated in the little machine manual:

"You'll want to take your machine with you on vacations with the family, weekend visits with friends, and finally to college. Ever ready for mending or making a simple garment."

Clearly this was a machine designed to teach children real sewing skills. I can't wait to get more familiar with this little machine and share a video on how it works next week.

So I'm off to go sew and spend time with my guys. I hope you have a wonderfully relaxing, peaceful Christmas! Be looking for an email from me next week with details about our new Machine Quilting Block Party!

Let's go quilt,

Leah Day