I have a wonderful husband…truly. One of his favorite things to do is give me above and beyond what I need. I wanted to get a stand mixer, he got me a KitchenAid in RED (my favorite color). For my 30th, he decided someone who cooks as much as I do needed a set of pans…but not just any set, a set of All-Clad. When I got pregnant with Kade and we started looking for a “mom car”, he didn’t look for a minivan – instead we got an SUV with GPS and a DVD player.
For some time now, he’s been trying to convince me to get a new sewing machine. I was not for the idea at all. Afterall, the one I had could sew forward and backward and had a straight stitch or zig-zag. It certainly got *most* of the jobs done. I’m guessing by the shade of blue that it’s from sometime in the 60′s and who can deny that was a great decade for fashion and by proxy sewing, right? It didn’t matter that it weighed as much as I did and that I was physically unable to lift it from the floor onto our dining room table, I liked it. Plus, it was a hand-me-down who knows how many times over. I couldn’t admit this to Kyle, but I secretly hoped that all those women who had touched the machine before me would somehow be able to transfer their talent to me through this machine. How could a new one provide that??
A few days ago, when the topic came up for the nth time, I said we should look online for options. He wanted to get one that would do embroidery and I knew that embroidery machines cost over a thousand dollars, sometimes multiple thousands of dollars and I figured that would put the conversation to rest for good.
Instead, we stumbled across a Singer that was a combo sewing/embroidery machine that was in a reasonable price range. It was hundreds cheaper than a typical embroidery machine because rather than have a big computer inside the machine, it hooks up to your PC to run the embroidery software. This could be a huge disadvantage for some people but because I have a laptop, no biggie. So instead of putting the conversation to rest, he talked me into it!
Not only can this machine go forward and backward, it can go forward and backward in 100 different stitch types. I was always kinda bummed that my old machine couldn’t make buttonholes. This one makes 7 different kinds of buttonholes! Did you even know there were 7 different kinds of buttonholes? I didn’t.
And just with the click of a few switches, it converts from a sewing machine to an embroidery one. It comes with two different sized hoops and can convert literally anything into embroidery. I think it will be so much fun to take some of Kade’s artwork, scan in it, and then stitch it on something for the grandparents or as a cover for a sketch book.
These are two of my sample trials. The flower was done not using embroidery thread or stabilizer but I had to try to embroider something the day I got it, even if I didn’t have all the supplies. The lizard is me experimenting with downloading a random design off the internet and figuring out how to convert it with the Singer software. The hot pink fabric is just what I had the most of. Don’t let it concern you that I have a little boy and my most abundant fabric is hot pink!
To say I’ve been relishing this machine the last few days would be an understatement. To say that I’m in WAY over my head would be incredibly accurate. Clearly my skill level needs to be bumped up a few notches to really get the full use out of this, but I can’t wait to keep practicing!
Thanks Kyle!! I love you!
