Ruler Quilting is Now Here!

The wait is over! For those of you who have been patiently waiting for the “official” ruler foot to be released, you’ll be thrilled to know that the QR ruler foot is included in the Accessory Upgrade kit for the Janome 9400. (If you're not familiar with the Accessory Upgrade Kit and what feet are included in it, click here.)

Once you have upgraded the software on your Janome MC9400, you’ll notice that there is a new addition to your display screen: RW or Ruler Work. By choosing one of the options under this menu, the Janome MC9400 will automatically ensure that there isn’t any problems using the automatic presser foot lifter and the QR foot. No need to worry about breaking a needle, damaging the presser foot or the Janome MC9400 itself.

I had the opportunity to try out this new foot on my Janome MC 9400 and I love it! The QR foot is integral with its own foot holder, much like the Janome HP foot, which makes it super quick to attach to the machine.

Ruler feet are always thicker than your other presser feet and visibility can sometimes be an issue because of this. This isn’t a problem with the QR foot though as Janome has carefully thought out the design of this foot: it has a U-shaped cut out at the front of the foot which means you can see what you are stitching, which is so very helpful.

When using the QR foot, you’ll need to use quilting rulers, like those that long-arm quilters have been using for years. These rulers are thicker than the acrylic rulers that you use when cutting with your rotary cutter.

DO NOT USE CUTTING RULERS WITH THE QR FOOT.

Okay, sorry for shouting, but this is a very important point. You must use rulers that are at least ¼” thick when doing ruler work to avoid having the ruler slide under the foot and damaging the needle and possibly your machine.

If you are new to ruler work, I would suggest getting a straight edge ruler to start to see if you like to do this technique (not everyone is enamoured with ruler work). There are lots of quilting rulers available, so be sure that you want to add this technique to your quilting arsenal before you spend lots of $$$ on rulers that you may never use.

I am working with two Handi Quilter rulers (the Handi Quilter VersaTool and the Handi Quilter Ditch Ruler) in the video as I use these on my Handi Quilter Infinity and they are good ones to start with if you are a beginner.

If you decide that ruler work is for you, you’ll have lots of fun choosing rulers to use when ruler quilting on the Janome MC9400.

Click on the image below to watch a video about attaching and using the QR ruler foot on the Janome MC9400.

Have you tried the QR ruler foot yet? Let me know your thoughts in the Comments below.

Creatively,

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It's Here: The Janome 9400 Ruler Foot Upgrade

You’ve been waiting for it and it’s finally here! The Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP Accessory Upgrade Kit. What is it and how to I upgrade my machine? Let me tell you!

The Accessory Upgrade Kit contains a USB that will allow you to upgrade the software in your Janome 9400 to allow you to use the four new feet that are included in the kit. I’m especially excited about one of these feet in particular: the QR foot, which will allow you to use rulers when quilting on your Janome 9400.

Now while you probably want to just start attaching and playing around with those new feet, you need to stop, hide them out of sight, and upgrade the software on your Janome 9400 first.

You will have received a manual with the Accessory Upgrade Kit and the instructions for updating the machine software are on page 5, so turn to that page to start. You’ll also need the USB stick that came in the Accessory Upgrade Kit.

Before you upgrade your Janome 9400, you want to be sure that it needs upgrading! You will need to upgrade it if the software version in your Janome 9400 is 2.0 or a lower number. If it is a higher version (number) than this, you won’t need to install this upgrade.

How can you tell what version of the Janome 9400 you have? It’s easy! Turn on the Janome 9400 and watch in the bottom right-hand corner of the display screen. You will see “Ver.” and a number. My Janome 9400’s version was 1.0, so I knew that I was okay to upgrade it using the USB stick that came in the Accessory Upgrade Kit. This information is only shown for a few seconds, so keep your eyes on the bottom right-hand corner of the display so you’ll see it when you turn on the machine.

Assuming that you need to upgrade to version 2.1, turn off your Janome 9400 and get your USB stick. Remove the cap and insert it into the port on the right side of the machine. Press it in firmly so it is secure. Now comes the magic part!

Press and hold both the Needle Up/Down and the Lockstitch buttons as you turn on the Janome 9400. Hold both of these buttons until the display screen turns to yellow. This should happen quite quickly, so you won’t have cramped fingers!

As the software installs, there will be a colour bar that comes down the display screen, starting with medium blue and then changing briefly to red and then to aqua – it’s almost like playing with the colour wheel! Finally, the screen will return to a solid medium blue colour and will say “FINISH” on it (see the image on the manual page above). This means that the software install was successful.

Turn off your Janome 9400, pull the USB stick out of the machine and put the cap back on it. Now when you turn on your Janome 9400, you should see that it has been updated to “Ver. 2.1”.

That was easy, wasn’t it?!

One more quick thing to do. Get out your original instruction manual that came with your Janome 9400 and turn to page 97 for instructions on how to reset everything to the default state. Press on the Set button (wrench icon) on the display screen and scroll through the options, using the arrows at the bottom of the screen until you come to “Reset All to Defaults” and press “Yes”. You can then choose “OK” to return to the Home screen.

To follow along with me as I upgrade my Janome 9400, click on the image below.

I'll have more information about using the four new feet with the Janome 9400, so be sure that you are subscribed to my blog or my YouTube channel to be notified when these are posted. 

Do you have your Accessory Upgrade Kit yet? Let me know in the Comments below.

Creatively,

P.S. Did you know that you can sign up to receive FREE emails full of quilting goodness? Just click here to receive FREE content directly in your email inbox every few weeks from Chatterbox Quilts. I know you'll be glad you did!

Top 5 Favourite Features of the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP

There are so many helpful features on the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP, that it is hard to just pick a few of them, but I'm going to try.

Here are my 5 Favourite Features of the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP:

1.    High Light - I'm sure you know that as you get older you need more light to see. Did you know that "people in their 60s need three times more ambient light for comfortable reading than those in their 20s"?* I know, it's shocking and I'm noticing this need for more light already. Thankfully, the Janome 9400 has the High Light which you can pull out and adjust to focus that light exactly where you need it. This bright LED light has helped me immensely with my quilting (especially since I've become a one-eyed quilter). I especially love that I can angle the light so I can place it just where I need it. A huge help for aging - or any - eyes!

Can you find the High Light?

It's behind the Janome name! Just pull out and angle it for the best light on your project.

2.    HP Needle Plate and Foot – I’m a quilter and I can’t overemphasize how helpful this new needle plate and foot is for obtaining an accurate ¼” seam. It makes piecing effortless and accurate. I use this combination exclusively for my piecing now.

3.    One Step Needle Plate Conversion – If you have ever struggled with a screwdriver to remove the needle plate on your sewing machine, you are going to love this feature! No worried about stripping screws or gouging your needle plate – just push down on the lever at the front of the machine bed and your needle plate pops off. You can then replace it with the one you need to use (you have a choice of three of them!). This is such a time saver and it’s actually fun to pop off and push on the needle plates on this machine.

Press down on the lever and...

up pops the needle plate.

4.    Automatic Thread Cutter – I use this feature all of the time, especially when I’m piecing a quilt. It snips the thread so I don’t have to stop to grab scissors to do this. I can just start sewing afterwards and don’t have to worry about tangled threads on the back of my project. Such a timesaver!

Click on the scissors icon and the thread cutter automatically snips your top and bottom threads.

5.     Superior Needle Threader – This is another feature that I really appreciate so I don’t have to struggle to thread my machine needle. With the new Superior Needle Threader, I just “lock” the machine, press down the needle threader lever on the side of the Janome 9400 and my needle is automatically threaded for me – every time.

Press down on the lever at the left hand side of the machine

and your needle is automatically threaded for you every time!

I know that I was only going to tell you about my top 5 favourite features on the Janome 9400, but I just couldn’t help but add one more:

6.     Adjustable Speed Control – This feature is one of the big reasons I wanted this machine: I can adjust the top stitching speed. By sliding the Speed Control Lever, I can set the fastest speed at which the machine will stitch. This is extremely helpful when I’m free motion quilting: I can set the top stitching speed and press the pedal to the metal, knowing that the machine will only stitch as quickly as want it to. It takes this one element out of free motion quilting allowing me to focus on the design I am creating. 

Adjust your machine's stitching speed from very slow

to very, very fast!

Don't think that just because I've only mentioned 5 favourite features of the Janome 9400 that there aren't many more helpful features on it for simplifying and accuratizing (is that a real word?) your stitching. Whether you are a garment sewist or a quilter like me you'll appreciate the carefully chosen features that are included on the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP.

Creatively,

Download the free Get Out of the Ditch! guide to learn how to start free motion quilting by clicking here.

Did you know that you can sign up to receive FREE emails full of quilting goodness? Just click here to receive FREE content directly in your email inbox every few weeks from Chatterbox Quilts. I know you'll be glad you did!

*http://www.allaboutvision.com/over60/vision-changes.htm

Which Bobbin Case is Which?

Let's talk about an often neglected, but very critical component of the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP sewing machine: the bobbin case. There always seems to be lots of confusion when it comes to the choices in Janome bobbin cases. Red, blue or yellow* – which is the right one to use for this project? Don’t worry, it’s actually very simple and I’ll explain the differences and uses for each in today’s blogpost.

First, let’s talk about the red dot bobbin case, which is the one that came pre-loaded in your Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP. This is the bobbin case that you will use whether you are sewing the hem on a garment or piecing together strips for a quilt. That was pretty easy, wasn’t it?

Now there are two other bobbin cases to discuss: the blue dot one and the yellow dot one. Both of these are optional bobbin cases that you would have to purchase for an additional fee.

The blue dot bobbin case is one that you will definitely want to buy if you are a quilter. It’s the one that you will want to have in the machine when you are free motion quilting as it has a looser tension than the standard red dot bobbin case. Okay, so you free motion quilters out there, be sure to have the blue dot bobbin case in your machine when you are free motion quilting. It makes a huge difference.

Last, let’s take a look at the yellow dot bobbin case. This bobbin case has twice the tension of the standard red dot bobbin case. This one isn’t included with the Janome 9400 and you probably won’t need to buy it because it is used for machine embroidery. This bobbin case is standard with the Janome Memory Craft 500E, as it is an embroidery machine, but since the Janome 9400 doesn’t have an embroidery module, you won’t be needing or using the yellow bobbin case. So you can just forget about the yellow bobbin case when discussing the bobbin cases that you might want to consider when using the Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP.

It really comes down to two bobbin cases for consideration when creating on the Janome 9400: the standard red dot bobbin case for most of your stitching and the blue dot bobbin case when you are free motion quilting.

To see more about the Janome bobbin cases, watch the video tutorial on my YouTube channel. Just click on the image below.

Do you use the blue dot bobbin case for your Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400QCP? Let me know in the Comments below how you like free motion quilting with this bobbin case on your machine.

*You will sometimes hear these bobbin cases referred to as the blue (yellow or red) dot, blue arrow or just blue bobbin case - they are all referring to the same colour bobbin case.

Download the free Get Out of the Ditch! guide to learn how to start free motion quilting by clicking here.

Creatively,

Did you know that you can sign up to receive FREE emails full of quilting goodness? Just click here to receive FREE content directly in your email inbox every few weeks from Chatterbox Quilts. I know you'll be glad you did!

Personalize Your Janome 9400

One of the options on my Janome Horizon Memory Craft 9400 QCP is the ability to change some of its settings so I can customize the machine to my specifications. I can't change everything on the machine - I'd have to have one custom built to do that - but there are many features that can be adjusted to my liking.

I know that some quilters like to hear everything that their machine is doing and receive these confirmations in the form of "beeps". For other quilters, these beeps can be quite annoying and distracting. The Janome 9400 allows you to adjust the volume of these "reminders" or even turn them off entirely. 

Another option allows you to change the brightness of the machines' LED screen, so you can make it brighter or less bright, depending on your preference. 

You can even turn lights on or off on the machine, if you'd like.

Watch the video below or on my YouTube channel to see all of the customizable options of the Janome 9400.

What options can be customized on your sewing machine? Leave me a Comment below to tell me what options you have changed on your sewing machine and why you did this.

Creatively,

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P.P.S. Check out our newest FREE mini-class on creating hanging tabs and using the pillowcase method for wall hangings and small projects.