Whoever Dies with the Most Toys Wins!

I think I've mentioned before how Brombeere likes to sew, especially quilts.  Since before we got married she's sewn clothes, which grew into sewing lots of things for us and our kids.  I still have a shirt she made for me when we were dating.  Stuff she has sewn typically plays a large part in Christmas and other gifts for kids and grandkids, to some extent or another, depending on how much time she has.  Anyway, Since retiring she has focused mostly on sewing quilts.  A couple of years ago she replaced her old Pfaff that's she's had for a long time, mostly because it was getting hard to get it serviced.  Part of the sewing she did on her new machine was a big quilt for Moosbeere, which turned out very nicely.  And so she has done a lot of sewing.  

The place she has normally taken her machine closed a while back because the owner retired.  She found another place here in town but a few years after she switched, the city was redoing the road in front of his place and was going to take his parking lot.  Instead of arguing with them or relocating, that guy decided to just retire as well. That was the guy who had told her he wouldn't be able to continue repairing her Pfaff because he was having a hard time getting parts. That led Brombeere to start looking around for another place to take her machine.  She has a couple of friends who are also quilters, and she got talking to them about where they got their machines serviced.  That led her to a new shop in a neighboring town.  So one day when we were in the area, she decided to drop in and check them out, she liked what she saw.  A short time later we had Erdbeere's machine because it needed some service so we went this new shop.  In talking with them about repairs she came to find out that they are a Pfaff dealer and could still service her old Pfaff machine so both machines went in the shop and a short time later, Brombeere had her old Pfaff back and working and suddenly she had two working sewing machines! 

Two machines, twice as much sewing, twice as fast, right?  Well, not quite.  Brombeere has also been learning to machine quilt, which is a bit different from hand quilting, much faster, but it has its own issues.  

While the Janome is a good machine, it's for general sewing, not specifically for quilting.  It doesn't have a big "neck" and so sewing a big quilt can get challenging some times.  Sometimes Brombeere would have to do things to make the material fit in the neck, especially when she was working out in the middle of the quilt.  On a big quilt that can be pretty hard.  So she started looking around for a new machine again.  She did a lot of research online and talked to her quilting friends.  She even went to the sewing shop and tried several different machines they had in stock.  Finally she made a decision on which machine she wanted and began looking around for the best price.  She found that price online and placed her order.

A few days later her new machine arrived!  This was a happy girl that day.

It came in a big, heavy (emphasis on the word "heavy") box but we got it inside and she began unpacking it.

Then she lugged the machine downstairs to her sewing area.

It took her a while to get it all out and assembled and set up on her sewing table so she could actually sew with it.  She had to consult the directions several times, even for stuff as simple as how to thread the needle.

The first thing she sewed on was a wall hanging she's been working on for a while.  She had been working on this wall hanging but, since it is a Christmas decoration, she figured she had plenty of time to finish it and had set it aside because she wanted to work on a quilt she's been working on for Erdbeere for some time.

Then she got out a piece of cloth she had brought home from the sewing shop where she tried some machines, and did some more quilt like sewing. Then, at last, she was ready and comfortable to try it on Erdbeere's quilt.

So she moved the Janome off her table and got all set up to do some serious sewing on Erdbeere's quilt.

And sew she did. The more she sewed the more she decided she liked this new machine.  Designed for quilting, this machine is much easier to do machine quilting on; getting a third machine is going to be a happy thing. She quickly decided this was going to be much better.