I call her Shelby

I started sewing about 3 years ago.  My neighbor Crystal wanted to make aprons and I said I was all in to help.  We had such fun picking out fabrics and patterns, but my only experience with sewing was helping my mom makes clothes when I was a kid.  She taught me all the basics and eventually I bought a starter machine to learn with. 

My first purchase was a basic Singer and the tension wasn't working right so I took it back (in hindsight it probably just needed adjusting).  Then I bought a Brother from Costco for $130.  All of the sewing items on this blog were made with that machine.  It's carried me quite far and I've learned so much since I started.  But, alas, it's time to upgrade.  Now that I've found my niche I just need more room to work.  The 4.5" throat (or opening from the needle right), was too small for many quilting projects.  Daryl can attest to lots of cuss words eminating from my sewing room.  That being said, the Brother is a great little workhorse piecing machine.

I've been saving money for a little while to purchase a new machine.  I bounced around between Husqvarna, Janome, Pfaff and finally settled on the Elna eXcellence 740.  She has a huge throat space, lots of stitches and came with all the feet and accessories I will need for quilting.  She sews smooth, takes thick fabric in layers really well and she purrs when she runs.

This year for Christmas we decided to visit my Mom in Arizona for some sun and warmth over Christmas.  Since we have 2 dogs, and boarding costs more than the airline tickets, we chose to drive.  Mom pulled off a huge Christmas surprise... the sewing machine I'd been saving for.  Holy cow!  I'm humbled by her generosity.  Daryl was a big help in keeping me from buying the machine when my salesperson called with a sale, and I'm told he did so much research he now knows more about sewing machines than he ever wanted to.  I'm excited to do more sewing!  Now a new learning curve begins!  Here's a picture of the two machines together....  Little Brother has a big sister, and her name is Shelby.  :)


~ Enjoy ~

I call her Stella

Daryl is so good to me.  He's always been supportive of my hobbies.  When I got into photography, he joined me in taking pictures - even getting into it himself.  I haven't been able to convince him of how much fun sewing is... yet.  He is always on the lookout for cool stuff.  Turns out Daryl and his friend have been trawling Craigslist and thrift shops looking for vintage sewing items and he came across this Free-Westinghouse machine in a cabinet.  She works and is in pretty darn good condition.  The seller thinks she is from the 1940's but there's no way to know for sure.  So, I thought Stella was a good name for that time period.  She even came with what looks like all the feet included originally.