A Quilted Sewing Machine Cover

Tadah! A new project I just snuck in here! A cover for my brand new Bernina! I spent a long Labor Day weekend down in Portland for time with a friend and a moped ralley. When I came back, after only having this lovely 440QE for a week, it was dusty! I was just appalled! That's like letting your silver get dull. :) So I needed a cover and... tadah!

Quilted sewing machine cover

Crazy fabric, right?! Well, I was working on a baby quilt for Baby Baker (yes, another baby, updates on this one soon) and I had a TON of scraps. Plus, I am so in love with this line of fabric, Summerhouse by Moda, that I wanted to keep them all.

Scraps of all shapes and sizes

So I gathered up all of the scraps I thought would work. I'd read another blog that had a great tutorial, but it was a little grandma for me (no offense, Grandma!). I loved these bright, overly patterned fabrics so I just thought I'd use the great idea of incorporating space for my extension table, but not make any sides or anything. I didn't have THAT many scraps.

Arranging the scraps

I measured my machine and figured out about how much I would need. I drew a really simple diagram to make sure I'd remember my dimensions and that it would work out in the end. I did this very impatiently, by the way. We had company coming over and I was in the middle of laying out the scraps when everyone showed up. Oops.

Once I had them layed out in a way I liked and knew would fit I went to the machine. It only took a little while before I had them all sewn together. I had some big scraps left over from a quilt I made ages ago (it's the black, white, and red one from this post) for the backing. I also had a few smaller pieces of batting laying around. How lucky!

Taping it to the floor, no bunching here!

I then taped the ironed backing to the floor, placed the batting on top, and then my scrappy masterpiece on top. I am completely in love with this fabric.

Neti of course helped monitor my pinning progress as I set the fabrics and batting together in order to get a solid quilting space.

Safety pins galore!

And then I remembered I had the BSR! I have NEVER done any quilting more than stitch-in-the-ditch so I was really excited to try a free-motion stipple on my new machine. I read through the instructions on set up and went to work!

The BSR in action!

With all of my excitement I forgot... this is hard! I made some MAJOR mistakes. I was actually laughing at myself while I did this. Everyone makes this look so easy. I watched tutorials and read blogs on tips and whoa buddy this is HARD! I made some major mistakes.

For example...

My stopping and starting lacked a certain seamlessness, if you will

But I just kept going. This is just a sewing machine cover by the way. And it's also my first try. Which would explain this...

I got a little over-zealous and without realizing it had sewn the extra batting into the bottom. Quilted it in to the bottom. Well, I was way too far in to this to stop so I just kept on keeping on. But eventually I actually got a feel for the machine and was doing beautiful things, like this...

So overall I was really, SO proud of myself. I ran it to my husband when I was finished with a huge grin on my face. He was also impressed.

Not the greatest picture to see the quilting, but below is

Not the prettiest, but I'm happy

Finally I just added the binding, some elastic stays to keep the sides together, and hand stitched it closed while watching Top Gear with the husband. Then the best part: I showed off my work... which was quickly appreciated by being donned as a hat. Not bad as a hat, really.

Matt in the machine cover "hat"

So again I say, Ta-dah!! Not too shabby. And so exciting to see on and done when I woke up this morning. Now I won't feel too quilty about a dusty machine.