BIG DAY!

Today is the day! Today I am going to Pocono Sew & Vac and bring home a new baby. I have been thinking about this for months. I have 5 sewing machines. One was a gift from my parents about 35 years ago. One was a Mother's Day gift from my son and his wife and is a little Janome that is perfect for taking to S4 gatherings and on retreat because it only weighs 11 pounds. Two were yard sale finds and are all metal monsters. They are incredible workhorses and are great for freemotion because their motors can handle the dragging of big pieces of quilt fabric. None of those machines can do any "fancy" stitching. They do straight stitch and zig zag. Only one has feed dogs that drop. I did buy a machine from someone on eBay about 6 months ago that does do very nice decorative stitches and I do like that machine.



That being said, I have been wanting a high speed, heavy duty machine with a knee lift, the ability to drop feed dogs, a "needle down" option, a large harp...basically something designed for quilting. I am going to test drive a Janome and a Juki. I have used the Viking Megaquilter and it works very well. At $15oo it isn't out of my price range and the dealer is just about 10 miles from where I live. Then I started reading about folks that were so happy with their Janome and Juki's. I don't need all that a Janome 6600 can do and I cannot afford to spend quite that much. I want to look at the Janome DB1600 series and see how that one feels. The one I am really excited to check out is the Juki TL98 series. ESPECIALLY now that I found out they actually make the Viking Megaquilter. I can bring home the top of that line for about $1000 and that is pretty exciting to me.

So...today I pick up my shop hop door prize and a sewing machine! Does it get any better than that?