The Perfect Machine - Dreaming

Sewing and Quilt Expo: My Land of Dreams!

I went to the Sewing and Quilt Expo in San Mateo, to get some new scissors. I went straight to a really good vendor I've gone to in the past. (http://www.scissorsales.com). I found my scissors - a pair of Stag shears, a pair of Gingher shears, a new pair of pinking shears, and OK :-)  some of those really darling tiny embroidery snips with the cool animal designs.... 

Then I went to the Brother dealer's booth. This particular vendor, AAA Vacuum and Sewing,  had been recommended by a classmate, who's been a customer for several years. (Also a lot of their satisfied customers dropped by the booth.) There I fell in love with a new machine. It's a Brother Quattro 3 . I want a more up-to-date machine for both garment and machine embroidery* Of course, it's not actually in the budget now...... I just wanted to get an idea of what I'd like to have someday. 

But it's like shopping for a car when you're not ready to buy one (I'm not actually into cars, but I get why people are tempted). I felt absolutely drunk reveling in all of the things this machine could do embroidery 'wise. It does a number of things I never imagined being able to do (like - for one thing- scanning a piece of printed fabric and digitizing it's own designs from the fabric - which you can then embroider over the fabric design, or recreate on another piece of fabric. And don't get me started on using the little monitor to re-place embroidery objects.)  That's in addition to all the newer basic stuff - like downloading designs from the web, magically threading your needle, offering multiple sizes of different decorative stitches - I can't do with my now quite old, bottom of the line Viking (It still uses cards and can't download designs - but works well, and yes I always keep it serviced). In addition to the embroidery coolness, the Quattro handled my heavy weight denim like a dream. I hardly even played with the garment construction features, except for using the 'hump jumper' and going over old Levi seams. But there's a lot more to checkout when I get serious.

The challenge is, it's just not our family budget.  It's about a third of the cost of the car we need to buy to replace one that's getting on in years.... Also for me sewing is a hobby. This is not a business expense..... I'll just have to wait for the day when a newer and even more imaginative machine comes out, and  people start trading this gorgeous, capable machine in for that newer model!

Daydreaming about a new machine is definitely keeping me....

Enchanted By Sewing

  
 * I used to be into quilting but for me I had to chose between garment and quilting - garment won

Anthony G. Sews Again! - Fourth Podcast Episode Almost There

You know the challenge... I've been working on my podcast about sewing for the past several days, therefore I haven't gotten on with my own sewing! And there's so much I want to get on with.

Here's Anthony G.. You'll be hearing him in an interview in my December podcast show (iTunes - Enchanted By Sewing), wearing two vests he made himself. The underneath one is wool lined with linen. And isn't that long, loose outside one cool? He designed it as a comfy around the house piece, but it would be absolutely great for long chilly walks as well.

I can't believe I saw the results of Anthony's first-ever sewing project back in September (it was a very snarky long-sleeved black tee shirt). Since then he's also made three other tees and a pair of linen pants as well as these vests and a hoodie lined in linen. And did I mention he's taking two other really challenging classes with major outside commitments?

In this fourth episode of the "Enchanted By Sewing Podcast", Anthony has a lot to saw about natural textiles - a lot I didn't know.

I'm planning to have the show published this weekend. I need to make a couple more passes and make sure I didn't manage to cut anything out - or leave anything odd in!

Just search on "Enchanted By Sewing" in the iTunes store.

But you knew that!