Welcoming a New Addition! :)

Well, new to me, anyway. If we're counting such things, he's actually got a few years on me!

Some of you may remember "Peggy" from my "Where I Sew" post. Good ol' Peg. She was my very first sewing machine, a 1969 Singer that belonged to my grandma. When I moved to New York for grad school, my father (over) oiled it and my mother optimistically sent it across the country with me. Peggy sat in the front closet of my apartment for four years before I decided to start sewing this past January.

Peggy, in all her glory.

I can't really complain about her performance. I could never get the stitching to be quite straight, but it's very possible that owes more to my complete lack of understanding of tension rather than anything Peggy did wrong. She started slow and it took a bit of a special touch on the foot pedal to get her going, but like learning to drive a stick shift, you eventually get the feel for it. And though the bobbin didn't hold much thread, I liked that you didn't have to unthread and re-thread the machine in order to refill it.

But the past March when I was home, my mother, so excited by my re-entrance into the sewing world, took it upon herself to see what better machines might be available on Craigslist. Through pure luck, she found a Bernina Record 930 for sale, identical to hers and the one on which I learned to sew, except in even better condition. After she took me to the airport (I was home on Spring Break when this took place), she went to check out the machine and bought it for me (I have probably the best mother ever)!!!

 It came with all of this neat stuff too! (Terribly lit picture, so I put a fancy filter on it. That's what all the cool kids are doing, right? If you use an Instagram filter, it's not crap, it's art! Magic!)

Unfortunately, from the fact that I'm announcing this now and she bought it in March, you can tell that I was separated from my new toy for quite some time. Sewing machines are not all that portable in the best of circumstances, and all of this sturdy Swiss mechanical goodness weighs, by my estimate, a solid half ton. Shipping wasn't an option, so I just had to wait until I drove back to Nebraska again, which wasn't until July. It traveled back to New York with me (via a stop in Michigan, where it sewed a very quick beach blanket) and it is now happily set up on my dining room table.

It sews so beautifully, you guys. It is AMAZING how much difference it makes to sew with this machine vs. Peggy. It just feels different--it so smooth and you can tell that all the things inside the machine are moving just as they are supposed to. It's also really easy to thread compared to Peggy, which I appreciate. Even though it is 30 years old, I can tell that it's a machine that is going to be with me for a very, very long time. It is magnificent!

Bingley inspected and approved.

So thanks to my dear mother, I am sewing on something that I could have only dreamed about for many more years. It was a truly generous gift, and I am already enjoying it so much! I guess I should probably sew her something for Christmas, eh? :)

And we shouldn't feel too badly for Peggy in all of this either. Peggy went back to Nebraska with me, and then she took a trip to Kansas, where she now resides with my sister-in-law (recipient of this table runner) who is hoping to learn how to sew as well. So Peggy continues her role as a great starter machine!

All that's left now is naming the machine (and a walking foot--I really need one!) I've already figured out that this one is a boy. I want something Swiss-sounding, but I don't know what sounds Swiss besides "Roger" and "Stanislas" (tennis players) :) and I don't like either of those names. I know there is some German influence in Switzerland, so I'm picking a German name (I hope this doesn't make me sound totally "ugly American"!) Whether it's very "Swiss" or not, German names are pretty badass, and so is this machine, so it works.

Here are the leading contenders:

--Dieter
--Tobias (Fünke) ;)
--Gunter
--Hans
--Jürgen
--Torsten

It is important that it be just right, you know. :) Thoughts?

Update 3/18/13: This machine has officially been christened "Tobias" and I've since purchased a walking foot. We're all very happy together. ;)

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Where I Sew

I know, I know... you were just dying to find out, weren't you? ;)

Like many of us, I don't have a special little room to use solely for my sewing supplies. I think that's a good fit for me, because I think if things were tucked too far away I'd sew a lot less. But unlike many bloggers, I live alone, which means I can sort of let things take up as much space as I want without having to clear the table for dinner. Hey, I'll enjoy it while it lasts. :)

Helper kitty will be joining us on this tour.

Here it is in all its glory! My dining room/sewing room. If I'm sewing during the day (rare, unfortunately), I have abundant natural light. At night, my apartment has the typical lighting of apartments, which is to say that there is more light in some deep sea vents. But I make do.

See where my cutting mat is off to the left? That's an amazing new discovery. No, of course I realized that I always had a counter there. But I didn't realize initially that it's the perfect height for cutting, and I cut out my first quilt on my table, which was very painful and annoying. But now... I'm really going to miss that wide, perfectly positioned counter whenever I move! 

I move my ironing board to the position you see above whenever I sew. The rest of the time, I leave it set up in front of the window as a "vertical enrichment" tool for my large and lazy feline. Believe it or not, that's actually what I bought the ironing board for before I started sewing. :)

Bingley sees no reason the board should ever be used for any other purpose.

 A closer look at my machine. My table offers a fair amount of space, even though it's not the hugest dining table in the world.

I love my 1950s advertisements. These are all from old calendars that I've acquired over the past five or six years. The one below is probably my favorite, and hangs above the cutting area/kitchen counter.

Dude had it rough.

And here is my machine, Peggy. This is Peggy's last quilt. :( The next time I am sewing in this space (I'm currently visiting family and friends in Nebraska), I will have the new machine my mom found for me on craigslist, a Bernina 930. I'm sure there will be a post on that when the time comes! But for now, this is Peggy, a 1969 Singer with some flaws and foibles, but who valiantly led me in my return to stitchery. 

'Atta girl, Pegs.

The view from my sewing machine, where I watch way too much House Hunters.

I've included the following photo just for Bethany and Jenn, as we are having an informal "grossest ironing board cover" contest. Feel free to join us in confessing your ironing board shame. :)

Also pictured: starving cat.

Wanna see my fabric? I love how it looks, all in mini bolts like this. You can see I haven't entirely gotten the hang of it and some of them are a little taller than others. Oh well. I still like that I can see everything at once and how beautiful they all look standing together! I have mostly small yardage--a lot of fat quarters, in fact.

Usually, I have this facing the other way to minimize sun exposure from the adjacent window.

My pretties.

Hope you enjoyed the tour! It's not fancy, but it works out really well for me! I'm linking this with Pink Chalk Studio's "Where I Sew" gallery. Head over there and drool at some really neat spaces!


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