6 features I love on the Brother NQ900 sewing machine

For the past two months, Jean Boyd has shared some great info about the Brother NQ900 sewing machine while making a fidget quilt and a table runner. This month it’s my turn to play with this great machine!

Great feature 1 One feature that Jean didn’t talk about is this machine’s portability! At just 23lbs the Brother NQ900 is so easy to take along on vacation, to classes, on a quilt cruise OR like I did a couple weeks ago – to a quilt retreat!!

Great feature 2 The extension table on the NQ900 is not only HUGE, but it also has fold up legs so it can be easily stored or slipped into a bag to take along with the machine. Here’s the extension table slipped inside of the retreat bag that I made during my QUILTsocial posts in December 2015.

Great feature 3 The NQ900 has two LED lights which is AWESOME for when you are sewing somewhere that the lighting isn’t all that great. I really appreciated that extra light while I was sewing at the quilt retreat.

Great feature 4 OK – all I have to say about the needle threader on this machine is WOW!!!! It’s so easy to use that I HAD to make a little video to show you. The needle threader can be used with machine needles 75/11 through 100/16.

Great feature 5 I love how this machine won’t stitch if the foot is up. If the foot isn’t down, the stop/start button glows red and the machine beeps if you put your foot down on the foot peddle. This is a wonderful feature, especially when using the free-motion quilting foot. Here’s what each color means:

• Green: The machine is ready to sew or is sewing.
• Red: The machine can’t sew.
• Orange: The machine is winding the bobbin thread, or the bobbin winder shaft is moved to the right side.

Great feature 6 Another super feature is that you can’t thread the NQ900 when the foot is down. A little cover, called the upper thread shutter, slides over the take-up lever and prevents you from pulling the thread through. If you thread a sewing machine when the foot is down, you may not get the thread between the two tension discs and when you sew, the tension between your top and bottom threads may be completely unbalanced. I see this happen a lot when I’m teaching beginner machine quilting classes so this feature would be amazing to prevent this problem from happening!

I really enjoyed using the NQ900 machine at the quilting retreat – and everyone thought it was so funny how excited I got when I needed to thread my needle, LOL. I spent three whole days sewing on this machine and ended up piecing a lap quilt, three baby quilts and four book covers. The machine handled everything so well and I think I may have fallen in love!

Make sure to come back tomorrow as we’re going to start making a baby quilt using Northcott’s new Bundle of Love fabric line and the Brother NQ900.