machines

i now own four sewing machines. that's not quite as bad as it sounds.

the first machine is one my mom scrimped and saved to buy for me in high school. she gave it to me my junior year for christmas. she wanted to pass on her sewing skills, but that never happened. it's a basic model singer. i used it at the time to attempt a pillow or something like that and never even finished it. somehow it followed me to college and came in handy once for a puppeteering class i took as part of my degree in early childhood education. later on, heidi swapp taught me how to sew on my scrapbook pages with it. i made my first quilt on this machine, pieced and quilted, as well as a project or two. i did not want to give it up or have to upgrade. but she pulled to the right and i was always fighting her for accuracy. so now she's my paper sewing machine. i next upgraded to . . .

a brother project runway. i saved my own money this time and got little (pink) brother. my local quilt shop sold this machine and it came highly recommended by a quilter there. at $400, it was a moderate investment but way below the high-end machines. my accuracy definitely improved. i purchased in a few extra feet and an extension table to help with my quilting. i made another 5 or 6 quilt tops with little brother and quilted "out on a limb" with it. but i wanted to free motion and i could tell little brother wasn't hacking it anymore. the throat space, especially, was an issue. i'll be keeping little brother for anything my new machine can't do, like zigzag stitch and a few other bells and whistles. because i did once more upgrade for my 40th birthday to this . . .

juki tl2010q
this is my main lady now. we are piecing and quilting together, learning all about how to fmq (free motion quilt). you can read my impressions of her here and here. i also did a review of her for the sew mama sew machine link party here.

little brother (unplugged) now does a great job entertaining the baby while i sew. and will be saved for other projects not suitable for juki.
that should do me for machines.

what about the 4th one you, say?

i also inherited my grandma margaret's singer, still in it's beautiful wooden carrying case. she sits on a shelf in my bedroom, purely decorative and sentimental. it's a priceless heirloom, that turned out to be even more priceless than i first realized. read about it here.