New Sewing Machine

Kyle totally surprised me this Christmas by getting me a new sewing machine! He had given me my old one about 7 years ago (also for Christmas!) and it still works okay. But I've done so much sewing on it that I've been having a little trouble with the tension lately, and I've never had it professionally cleaned so the parts underneath were getting pretty dirty and full of fuzz from all that flannel and quilt batting I've been putting through it. It was also a more compact size which, in some ways was great but in other ways it was a little too small. But I've made 6 1/2 quilts, a quiet book and countless other clothing/baby items on it, so I've definitely gotten a lot of use from it. But it's time to put it aside and start using this instead...

I turned it on to play with it a little, although I was a bit intimidated at first! Unlike my first machine, this one is all automatic and comes with over 170 stitches. Aside from the basic straight/zigzag stitches, it has all kinds of decorative stitches and three alphabets. I tried out a few (the pics are a little fuzzy)....

SO fun!! When Kyle bought the machine it came with a class session to teach the machine basics. I took the class yesterday and was surprised at how much it can do--it can even sew buttons onto the fabric! Now the only hard thing is deciding what I want to make first! :)

Speaking of buttons, I've been organizing some of my sewing stuff last week. Some of the baby shoes I make use buttons and I was telling Mom that I hate paying $3 for a card of buttons when I only need two of them. So she sent me some! She has a couple buckets right full of all kinds and sizes of buttons, so she filled a big ziploc bag and mailed it to me! I was so excited to get them! But since they're all mixed together, I thought it might get a little frustrating to dig through them all the time to find two that match. So one night when we were watching tv, I dumped them out and started sorting!

I cut out up a big piece of cardstock into small squares and once I had the buttons sorted, I used a needle and thread to put them on the cardstock, tying them on the back.
Now when I need a pair, they'll be easy to find. I had a lot without a match, so I put those in a separate container to use for scrapbooking or other random projects.