My New Toy - YEAH!

The the Pfeasco has ended. In case you missed it, the background is here. I traded in my Pfaff Smart 200c yesterday. We went back to Bonny's and I spent some time with Frank, after spending a great deal of time on the Internet and I came home with a much lighter wallet (or heavier credit card bill) and a new machine. I now own a Viking Topaz 30. This is much more machine than I had before. And it has some pretty cool features. I won't bore you with the details, if you're interested you can always check out Viking's Web Site . For those of you "in the know", it is pretty much a Sapphire model with the embroidery unit attached. It's new, only out since last November, and they did some nice upgrades as a spill over from the Diamond - that costs more than my first house. Well, not really, but it's pricey. My favorite "gee whiz" items (so far) are the auto thread cutter, start/stop button (you don't have to use the foot pedal - take note of this if any of my CC friends are reading) and how the presser foot lowers itself and starts to sew. There isn't even a lever to drop it with. (That's a little weird, I have to say). I'm still basking in the glow of new ownership and haven't actually sewn anything yet. Just a bunch of junk on junk. Stitches on scraps. The most constructive was fixing a zipper seam, about 10 stitches worth. I kind of forgot, in the heat of the battle and the dilemma over what to do about this that I would need something to sew when I brought the baby home. As you can see here it pretty much took over our apartment yesterday. DH had enough and left me to it - he did go with me to Bonny's though. And I guess Kacy was ready to trade the whole mess in for her ball.

So in order to have something to work on, this morning I cut out a pair of pants (free prize to the first person who guesses the pattern). No pictures, that just too dull to even photograph. And this afternoon I turned this: My quilt fabrics, into this: Which would be my quilt fabrics cut into 3" strips. Not too exciting, but I also did my taxes (YIKES!) and drove aimlessly around Maryland for about 3 hours. Something I just can't explain, even to myself. Of course, in between it looked like this: That's my Singer 201 hiding beneath the fabric that has been washed, dried and pressed. And yes, the new toy is on the table behind. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next with the strips, as I don't have the same amount of every color (apparently I'm not known for my quilt planning expertise). I starting thinking blocks, but the different number of squares of each color - I'm particularly light on the green - make this difficult. And I want to keep it simple. I may do strips, then the numbers of each won't matter so much. My bed quilt is like this. My new machine (yeah, I like saying that) has some nice piecing and quilting features - particularly for a "non-quiliting" model (Sapphire has a quilting model if you're interested) like the pressure foot float that lifts up the foot automatically when you stop in needle down, the auto tension, extra lift on the foot and feed dog drop, plus a wide range of quilting stitches. Roughly the second row of stitches in the picture above - though I know you can really see them well, trust me, it's a lot.

I need to put the Singer back down in its hidey hole, I suppose, but I'm glad I had that re-bonding time. A silver lining to the Pfaff mess was discovering that so many of my sewing problems and short falls wasn't me. If was Pfaff. I CAN sew a straight line. I CAN sew at the edge. I CAN still eyeball a seam allowance.

Sew, I'm a happier camper tonight. I'm still a little peeved about the whole thing, but it feels good to have made a decision and moved on. Kind of like tossing that wadder or UFO in garbage. No more "what ifs" or "maybes" Done is done. I didn't get the deal of the century, but I'm sewing again and I have a machine that I will not outgrow and that will continue to serve and challenge me for a long time to come. And you can bet that the first time it hiccups, it will be back with Frank.

My son was here last weekend, one reason for the Pfaff/Viking delay. We went to Arlington National cemetery and Philly. There was a full honors ceremony while we were at Arlington. Very moving.