I'm participating in the #myyearinquilts hashtag over on Instagram, which was started by the Modern Quilt Studio on their IG feed.  I have been out of the practice of posting regularly to Instagram, and I do find it helpful to do with the structure of a challenge. I'm on day 6, and I'm writing this in an internet cafe (how milennial of me!) on my way to pick up my granddaughter...so here's today's blog.The prompt for today is my favorite tool -- and there's only one thing it can be. My Janome 8900...but if you have ever asked me in my life how many machines I would own (currently 3!), or how many times I would have upgraded to get here...I'd have had to plead the fifth.  It's been long strange journey to get here, and I find today that even now, in my 3rd year of ownership...I still find things to love about it.  Have I mentioned that it's my 4th Janome?This snapshot was taken about 5:30 this am (note the dark in the window), and the tools from my latest sewing project are strewn about the machine.  I love sitting down and working with it, and when I don't get a chance to do that, I miss it.My first machine, as a newly married woman, was a private label nightmare sold through JCPenney. It came with no quilting attachments, no case, a manual written mostly in what I think was Chinese, and a tension dial that was never in balance.  I think that I easily spent more than I paid for it in balancing adjustments....and to think, that's what I learned to quilt on.  That might explain why I had several early quilts fall apart.I finally 'broke' - me, not the machine - when I took a quilting class and spent more time fiddling with the tension than sewing. I came home in tears...and that's when my husband said that I had tried my damndest - but I needed a better machine.He always has been a right tool for the job kind of guy...Fast forward through the selenction process of the initial machine, and several upgrades to get to this one. It purrs, it's always in balance,  I love experimenting with the attachments and the feet, and it has a manual in excess of 40 pages written in English, and this one has a button that you press and magically does give you a 1/4" seam allowance.  The layout is also toddler friendly, in that I can have my granddaughter stay on one side of the machine.The stitch is beautiful....even, straight, and something that makes me happy to use it.  It's not the highest end in the line, but it is the one I love.