Sew what.

I woke up to find a message in my inbox from Bran. "How sweet" I thought "he hasn't done that in a long time." I can quite easily be described as a suckers for small gestures. So this was quite well received.

When I opened up the message I found "Good morning. Be sure to check Woot." Ok, so not quite the romantic gesture I was anticipating. In fact this is downright dangerous stuff as he is sure to have found something I'll want to buy but alas buying things costs money and I have yet to find any money trees.

Dutifully I loaded the woot.com website. And there was a shiny sewing machine. *want* Well, he may not be so great on the romantic gestures front but Bran does know me.

Of course I already have a sewing machine, but it has a few less than satisfactory qualities. The thing is a beast. I can still lift it so it's not the most epic but it takes some considerable effort on my part so I would guess somewhere in the 35-45 lb range (I'm probably underestimating my weakness and its like 30lb, but for now the numbers stand). This makes it pretty darn inconvenient to get set up and sewing. It is old. Certainly older than me, it's a bit possible at doubles me in age. Which leads me to the most important quality issue. The thing sucks at sewing.

I'm now at a point where if I'm going to sew something I know it has to be of a heavier fabric. I can almost get away with 2 or more layers of quilters cotton but silk or taffeta or anything beautifully light and airy is out of the question. Sadly I have lost some good fabric to this problem on more than one occasion. The tension on it doesn't quite work properly anymore. It takes quite a bit of fiddling to get a relatively decent stitch. And even then quite often things are pulled to one side or another or the fabric buckles. Lastly it skips random stitches. This particular quirk is absolutely infuriating and makes the machine useless for any sewn objects that I want to actually look well made.

But on the other hand...hey it works and I can (mostly) sew things. Plus how often am I sewing stuff these days.

The idea was now in my head however, and it wasn't going to let go anytime soon. I spent a good bit of the morning researching. Woot had a Singer electronic machine with 70ish different stitches and a few extras for $150. It seemed like I ought to be able to to better than that.

So after a good bit of looking I found this machine at Costco. It always seems like these machines have way more than I need. But hey decorative stitches can be fun. And in reading the owners manuals online I fell in love with lots of the spiffy things it could do like an invisible hem. How awesome is that. Never mind that it would likely take me as long to get it set up as it would to sew by hand. It had lots of good reviews on the Costco site and elsewhere. Plus it was more on sale than the link shows now and shipping is free.

After sitting on the idea for a few days I went ahead and ordered and a few days after that my new toy arrived.

I've only used it a bit so far but am absolutely loving it. And rather amusingly one of the little bits of use that I got from it was quite spontaneously sewing a test veil for a friend who is getting married. Crazily it was like the easiest sewing project ever.

Rock on.