My new Janome Memory Craft 14000

The UPS man brought me something super exciting this week… a new sewing machine! This whole story begins a couple weeks ago when 2 things happened about exactly the same time: my little sister got an embroidery machine and my Bernina 1530 broke. Well, it turns out that the Bernina can be fixed. But during that in-between period when I was thinking that I might need a new sewing machine I started looking at sewing/embroidery combination machines because, well, why not? My sister has one! LOL. Do we ever really change?

UPDATE: I love this sewing machine so much, I put it on my list of the best Sewing Machines to Buy on Amazon.

Unfortunately, the people at my Bernina dealership have always come off as snobby when I took my 1530 in for cleaning. And the lady didn’t even offer to show me her newer models when I was there with a possibly broken, unfixable machine. I know they have wonderful machines, but I want to feel comfortable in the shop. Is that too much to ask?

So I drove over to the Janome quilt shop – where the owner has always treated me like a friend. I fell in love with the Janome Memory Craft 1500 because it was big (lots of room for quilts), the Accufeed dual-feed feature is amazing (so many options!), and it stitched out beautiful embroidery! But the price tag was over my budget.

Then I discovered that the Janome Memory Craft 14000 is almost the same sewing machine as the 15000 (less the wireless capability and some of the included stitches and embroidery designs), but at a much lower price! 

Now I take you to the photo above which was right after I separated the two boxes and hefted them up 15 stairs to my sewing room. I was all alone and so excited to share the moment with someone that I recorded a Facebook live video. I’m almost too embarrassed to share it with you. I had no make up on, and obviously this is my first ‘unboxing’ video because I didn’t cut open the boxes beforehand and I’m sure I look like an idiot trying to hold the phone and open them at the same time. So maybe you shouldn’t watch it. 🙂

But I did eventually get it open and look how beautiful she is! There are so many accessories and extra little ‘toys’ that came with this sewing machine, it was like Christmas for me.

Here she is all set up in my work space and let me tell you, this is truly a dream machine!

I have my first real sewing project all cut out and ready to sew, but I couldn’t wait one minute more to try the embroidery module.

These are my first 3 embroideries! They are designs that came with the Janome 14000, stitched out in one color of thread on some red fabric that I happen to have a lot of. You can see in the one on the left I just kept stitching designs until the hoop was full!

I was up until 2 am playing, he he.

And then the next day I pulled out some black linen and stitched these roses (another included design) with my favorite colors of Aurifil 50wt thread (I got them from Fat Quarter Shop).

I can hardly wait to try the Accufil hoop that lets you actually quilt quilts with it.

My kids’ spring break is next week so that means I won’t get nearly as much time as I want to keep learning about my new Janome 14000. But you can expect updates from me as I time goes on. 🙂

So, what have you been sewing up this week? Did you make something with one of my free sewing tutorials or patterns? I would love to see! Tag me on Instagram @sewcanshe.

xoxo,