Patchwork and Quilting Day at Samuel Taylor at Embsay Mill!

This week I spent a wonderful day with a group of patchwork and quilting ladies (some advanced and some beginners) at Samuel Taylor's in Embsay near Skipton.

Samuel Taylors @ Embsay Mills is a fabulous place for crafters of all types of hobbies, of course, patchwork and quilting department (with the most wonderful fabrics!), Janome Sewing Machines, cross stitch and hand embroidery, knitting yarns and Oliver Twist decorative yarns and fibres, plus a huge department of card and scrapbooking paper crafts... and a class room which hosts regular workshops in many of the above! and when you've finished shopping... a coffee shop to enjoy a drink and homemade cakes... can life get any better??During our Patchwork and Quilting Accessory day, we looked at some of Janome Sewing Machines and discussed different P and Q features, such as the hand look quilt stitch (always a crowd pleaser!), straight stitch needle plates, crazy patchwork decorative stitches, and of course, all the accessories to help create a perfect quilt.

We started with the 1/4" Foot, as any patchworker knows, a 1/4" seam is so important, so this easy to fit foot as a guide down the side to "but" the edge of your seam to, and when using centre straight stitch, gives you a perfect 1/4" seam allowance.

And then onto the Ditch Foot, the guide of the foot sits in your "ditch" and helps keep your stitching in the ditch!
The Clear View Quilting Foot and Guide Set combines both the 1/4" foot and Ditch Foot in one... and it also has 1/8" and 1/4" red marking to help your piecing, and you can move your needle position within this foot to let you have a scant 1/4" seam.

We looked at the Acufeed system on the Janome Horizon machine, which is a built in even feed / walking foot / dual feed, and allows you to use a 1/4" Seam Foot, Ditch Foot or Open Toe Foot at the same time as having the Acufeed engaged, this is invaluable for patchwork and quilters. The Acufeed Feet will only fit the Horizon (7700QCP) and the 6600p.

Our other machines have the Janome Even feed Foot available, which helps to feed quilting layers of fabric through the machine and not pucker or slip. There is a standard foot Even Feed, and Open Toe Even Feed and a Convertible Even Feed which has both Standard and Open Toe options.
We also looked at the Darning Foot for free machine quilting and embroidery and the Convertible Free Motion Foot Set (which can be seen above), this has three feet options, a small circle, a horse shoe shape or the clear round plastic with 1/8" markings to help when stippling your quilt.

For more information on Samuel Taylor and workshops they run at Embsay Mills, check out their website. Click on Crafts.

To see if we are running a Janome event in your area, keep checking our Events page on the Janome.co.uk website.