Brother Fashionista NQ3500D Review

Hi Everyone. So I may or may not have said before that at my mom's quilt shop JoyQuilts we are a Brother Dealer. Brother had a new line come out that we haven't seen before and they let us borrow one for a week to check out the features of the new line.

One of the things I love about Brother is that it is accessible and user friendly for the novice to the experienced quilter. Every machine from Brother that I have had the chance to check out has an amazing user manual and well label pictograph icons making it easy to reference and remember each function.

Plus if you are a Disney fan Brother has exclusive 35 Disney Designs built-in.

 Included with the machine two embroidery hoops 5 x 7 inches and 6 x 10 inches and 138 non-Disney Designs . This machine also has 360 degree sewing  sideways motion stitches

The above hoop is 6 by 10 inches! It has lots of room to stitch your designs.

The is the 5 by 7 inch hoop. Great for making those all important quilt labels. 

 The seasons were built-in designs Fall and Summer were in there too!

I did a little basic sewing, experimented with sideways motion stitches, and a few embroidery designs. I loved the ease of use. I found winding a bobbin and threading to be a breeze and the needle threader works faster than you can snap your fingers.

 The above is a decorative stitch I designed right on the machine. This is a neat feature from Brother.

These two pics are the sideways motion stitches built in to the machine. Add decorative stitches to you quilt sashing or any other project you have on the go!

I really feel if you are a novice you can get great results for your sewing or embroidery. If you haven't started embroidery and are looking to get into the embroidery world this would be a good place to start. Fashionista NQ3500D

Post again soon.
Adrian


p.s. These are my opinions. I have not been paid for this review I just wanted to share the fun I had this week trying out this machine!

Seminole Table Runner Finish

So I have finally finished quilting the Seminole Table Runner I showed in my last post. I am a little later posting than planned. Its been a rough couple weeks schedule wise around here but it is finally finished.

I really love quilting and trying new techniques together with tried and true methods. For me the tried and true method is FMQ with my BSR. New to me is walking foot quilting. I have used my walking foot in the past but I never quite got the results.

First things first I pin basted my layers together.

 To finish off this runner I used 100% cotton batting and a thermal fabric backing that way it can stay on the table during dinner and will take the place of trivets and pot holders. I grew up in a large family but we only have one stove top and sometimes a dual oven but to get the meal on the table and keep it hot we were rotating things in and out of the oven and always looking for pot holders to protect the table cloth and table. I used my dual feed foot (built in walking foot) to stitch in the ditch around the center patchwork. When doing stitch in the ditch I usually use my BSR, that way if my seams aren't quite straight or laying flat I can make the stitching fit at the ditch.

When I do use my walking/dual feed foot I do a finessing to make sure my stitch ends at the points. By using the hand wheel on my machine I can make the stitch a little longer or shorter to make it end where I need it.

Next I used my BSR to add detail quilting in the centre four patches. In the black square I added a triple petals and in the gray I did a side to side wave.  I moved across the centre of the quilt from end to end for the swirl and then added the triple petals after.

After the center four patch was done I put my 1/4 inch dual feed foot back on and stitched point to point  in the background fabric. I then also stitched a 1/4 inch on either side of the first stitch line.

When I got to the outside on the centre patch work I used my Hera Marker from Clover to mark the straight lines. I no longer had a point to shoot for with the stitching and adding the crease line from the Hera Marker made it easier to stay on the straight in relation to the rest of the lines.

Instead of cutting my thread when I reached and end point I back stitched/stitched in place to knot my thread and did a jump stitch. I usually do this when a jump stitch will waste less thread than cutting the thread and starting it again. If you use this method make sure you get a good knot in your thread otherwise you will lose your stitching and have to do it all over again. After I was done stitching I went back and clipped all the jump stitches.

After the middle of the runner was complete I used the dual feed foot and stitched in the ditch around the borders. Finally the runner was done, except for the binding, aka my least favorite part.

Thanks for stopping by!

Adrian