Brilliant idea and so well made Sheilago, I am sure your grandson will be delighted with his very own very personal quilt and something so special to snuggle up with.

May I just add my thoughts please, AnthonyExmouth you have just spent a lot of your hard earned money on buying this lovely machine for your Mum, and I take it she is really delighted with your kind thoughts on this,  so in order for this to work well and give excellent  results it really is worth changing the needle regularly i.e. after each garment or project or as KayK has said after every 8 hours work  - your machine will thank you in the long run.  These days fabric is not exactly cheap, nor is thread, so may I also suggest use the best needles i.e. Schmetz and also a decent thread like Gutermann.  May your Mum have many hours of happy sewing now and I do hope she enjoys her new machine - a lovely gift from her lovely son.

Now I am actually resewing that seam, the fact that I have been able to use the invisible zip opening to turn the blazer inside out has solved quite a few problems, first seam sewn, now about to tackle the underarm part of the armhole, then it is the lining.  The blazer is a Marks and Spencer school one and guess where it was made - India.  However the thread that they always seem to use is so thin and often it is a chain stitch, which as we all know once that starts unravelling it is a pain to try and stop, however, the fabric was stitched with an ordinary machine stitch thank goodness, not sure yet what and how the lining is stitched.  I am fighting ravelling fabric and lots of ironed on interfacing, some unravelling coarse weave stuff, some felt and it is horrible to say the least - nothing neatened at all on the actual blazer but guess what they have overlocked the seams on the lining.

Good to hear Bill, I must admit I had thought about suggesting swapping the motors over but that is as far as I got.  Well done on cleaning out the part of the 201 that you have posted about and what a transformation.  Now your machine is ready for you to sew away to your heart's content - enjoy!!

I received my latest Threads magazine yesterday, and in this there were loads of ideas for Christmas gifts, and one in particular is from the UK, and comes under the name of  Jenerates (Jen Hogg) she was in the GBSB of 2019, and has set up her own business and there are some lovely sewing aids, the one shown in Threads was  Seam Circles, these are small different sized wooden circles all different measurements, and you can place these against your pattern edge, put a pencil through the central hole and then run the wooden disc up along your pattern - the discs are from a 1/4" seam allowance to 2" and these discs are available either in metric or imperial.  Jen has also some other little sewing aids available as well as aids for knitting.  Her details are jenhogg.co.uk  (whilst I couldn't get this to work initially I eventually just typed in her name and up came Jenerates Jen Hogg).

I think this is going to solve a problem I have had with my husband asking me what do I want for Christmas   and to be honest I couldn't think of anything, and as I am drafting a lot of my own patterns lately I think I have now found the answer to marking in my seam allowances as I have tended to go down from the usual 5/8" to 3/8" and then overlocked these together and pressed to one side and for what I have been making this smaller seam allowance on my particular rather large size has proved to be beneficial.

Does your grandaughter like animals - if so what about the James Herriot books, i.e. 'It shouldn't happen to a Vet' etc.  My daughter found these around the same age, and just loved them - she couldn't get enough of them.

My Oodie was a gift last Christmas, it is heavy the outer layer is sort of velvety and lovely and soft, whilst the inner is a fur fabric of some sort.  It certainly is warm, and the cuffs on the sleeve are really snug, however I find it difficult to get off, I need to stand up to pull the hem up towards the waist, then sit down again, and then pull my arms out of the sleeves so in effect I am in a sort of bag and then push the Oodie up over my head from the inside.  Now early this autumn I was using this as I was very cold in the evenings and I certainly warmed up and all I had on my top half underneath was a tee shirt.  My Oodie has an enormous  pocket across the tummy area useful for putting the hands in to keep warm but it does make that area rather thick, and I also have a hood as well, again this is the outer fabric plus an inner lining of the fur fabric.

I think it would quite easy to make something similar, I am intrigued as to how they have got the cuff onto the sleeves  it rather looks as though they made a sandwich of the sleeve with the cuff on the inside so when sewn together and turned the right way out there are no raw edges showing at all.

If you want anymore information let me know, I am rather late up today and just off to have my shower, but I can take some photos of various parts of this if that would help - just let me know.

Oh have fun KayK your new machine sounds as though you will have plenty to keep you occupied for the next few weeks before the move and then after.  Now why not treat yourself to another Horn cabinet and get rid of the table, and if you get a new cabinet - well with a move to a new house, why not treat yourself as I am sure you will have a lovely sewing room or two to play with, and then get the various plexi's cut for each of your machines, I don't think you will regret it.  I much prefer sewing in the 'flatbed' mode I even use this position with my overlocker and originally had a plexi cut to fit the overlocker at the time - now no longer, but I asked Horn and they supplied me with a piece of a plexi that fits between the edge of the cut out on the cabinet top and the overlocker - makes life so much easier sewing this way without drag.  Whilst Horn do not keep templates of all the various overlockers I made one myself by sitting the overlocker on the kitchen table and then stacking small paperback books up close and all around the overlocker until they reached the top where the feed dogs are, and then once this was all level I put some cardboard folders over the top for evenness and then some brown paper and drew around all the overlocker parts and they cut a plexi from this and it worked beautifully.

Also a long time ago now Horn were offering the opportunity to have a whole plexi at a sensible price and then this can be used as a light table, all you need is to have the platform at the lower level and stand a lamp or a small light on this.