Look Sarah!!! Look Judy!!!
Look what Santa brought me!!! No surprise to you Sarah! Judy, the big box under the tree was full of smelly tennis shoes! BUT the box that was wrapped in the bedroom closet... now, that one was a Singer Featherweight! Isn't she a beaut?! I am so thrilled. DH Bill has been bugging me to get a new sewing machine for years, but I kept putting him off. I just hated to get something new. I'm really more of a vintage kind of girl than a designer one. I have an ancient Jeep that I drive around- lots of rust. You know the kind with the wood panels on the side? But I never worry that it is going to get dinged in a parking lot, or that I'll wreck it. It's kinda disposable. It's comfortable. That's the way I felt about my old machine. Yes, lots of weird little quirks, but basically reliable. A new machine? Well, you have to spend all of this time getting to know it, you're worried it'll break. Especially those fancy computerized ones. My SIL has one that actually tells her what to do. The gall. No thank you. Sarah mentioned to Bill way back in July that I might really like a Featherweight. What a friend. Bill has been looking for one, ever since. (You have to know Bill... He is so sweet and generous. My Dad actually admonished me- the week before I was to marry him, to be nice and careful not to take advantage of him. I was offended, but Dad was right. You have to be very careful not to mention that you like something, or else it goes home with you. So what would be wrong with that, you ask? Well, just because I like something doesn't mean I want it or need it. And it wouldn't be any fun to run us into financial ruination for, say, an ice tea maker! I can boil tea just like most of the tea-drinking world.) I'm rambling, right? But I am just so thrilled. Sarah says he called her when I was in WV with my dad, and asked some more specific questions about what I might like. If I recall, that was shortly after I was reading Judy's blog about all of her Featherweights and Singer 301s. I tilted the monitor ever so slightly so Bill could see what I was ohhing and ahhing over. He asked if I might be interested in one of them and I said I was- but didn't know which one. So now that I have the featherweight, he says that if we find a 301 that I like better, that we can always sell the featherweight, since they are so popular. Silly man.

It runs like a dream and I have finished two quilt tops since Xmas- not bad, huh? I had forgetten how fun peicing can be. Honestly, it's been a long time since the activity in my quilting room resembled anything close to mere sewing. With my old sewing machine it was more akin to a WWF wrestling match- complete with trash talk. ie.-"Oh yeah, you're going' down. I am the undisputed champion in this sewing room! You wanna peice of me?" Leaders and enders? na-uh. Not possible, as every single peice had to be fed in- with the pressure foot up. Remember me grumbling about the bulkiness I ran into when I did some of Tonya's letters? Well, that's because sewing more than two layers was almost impossible. Now this baby just glides through tons of seam allowances and, I'm saying this in hushed tones as I don't want to alert the sewing maffia, but I can even sew over seams with pins in them!! I took a clothing construction class in college and I thought the teacher was going to stab me with her pinking shears when I stitched over a pin. But sometimes you kinda need to, you know? And now I can. I can even sew off of the fabric and hop onto another peice. Amazing. It doesn't knot all up in the bobbin case. And the feed dog plate is flat to the machine surface-instead of 1/4" step up- like the old machine and kept flipping my seams in the wrong direction. I don't have to tug and pull and push. I just sit there like a normal human being, and it's so quiet and it doesn't rattle off the table and constantly need to be dragged back into position. Bill even bought me 18 extra bobbins. It does smell a little like the barber clippers that I use on the boys' hair. But that's just the oil, I think. I can live with it. I'm a happy, happy camper! Thank you, Bill!

(Sarah- yet another thing we have in common! I also love using up every bit of thread off the spool! I can hardly stand to let them go!! Notice the pile of spools by my new machine. That's just two weeks worth. I try to throw them away, monthly. Joe once asked me why I keep empty spools of thread and I told him it reminded me that I did get something done, today. I usually pick them up on clearance- just odd colors, ones I consider neutral. I remember when all I did was dress making- it would take me forever to run through a spool of thread- if ever. Now it is an almost daily thing. And that's a good and lovely day!)