An Ordinary Day Goes Wild

It was a mild-mannered morning. Mike and I were drinking our coffee and catching up on email. After a while I started doing some stitching on my embroidery project. We were, all in all, being our boring Saturday morning selves. Then Mike casually mentioned that he thought he'd go to the local electronics outlet and get something he'd seen on sale.

So I said, "I could ride along, and we could stop off at the local sewing machine shop and look at the Baby Lock Tiaras they have on sale there."

And, amazingly, he said, "Okay."

Well, shut my mouth!

For just a moment, I considered the possibility that he was sick. But then I figured I could probably use this brief moment of insanity to my advantage. So, I did what any red-blooded quilter would do. I dropped everything and got ready to go, trying my best to look ever so bored with the whole affair.

I've been looking at these machines for quite a while actually, ever since I took the all-day long arm class and decided that standing at a long arm machine was definitely not for my tired old feet.

My friend Marei wisely steered me in the direction of a mid-arm sit down machine, and I've been looking at them all along. There isn't a whole lot of difference from one brand to the next, and so I was just waiting...biding my time...until somebody offered me something that would make the old man of the family sit up and take notice. Finally, I receive an email with a steal of a deal from this particular store that carried the Baby Lock Tiara II

So we go to said sewing machine shop and Mike seems loaded for bear. He looks at the price and says to the store manager Shelley, "It says on your website that you're having an anniversary sale and that all new sewing machines are 20% off."

And Shelley does a quick calculation in her head about what the machine in question would sell for at that discounted price and says (and I'm not kidding here), "Whatever." And the price includes all the goodies: stitch regulator, bobbin winder, table, smooth table overlay, and she goes on to say, "I'll even throw in the Martelli Gripper Rings." And for a little more, we can even get the fancier Tiara Studio Table by Koala.

So we did. We had to drive to the other side of town to get one from the main store, and the studio table is still on order. They gave us the basic table, and when the studio table arrives, they'll switch it out for me. Also, a woman is going to come out to the house to give me some instruction. The machine is not terribly complicated, but I always think those free classes are a good idea with a new machine.

So geez! I wasn't expecting that! And it's all set up now.

I considered moving things around in the sewing room, but then decided instead to put it in my office upstairs. My sewing room is in the basement where I have no windows. I'm grateful for my space, but I decided the quilting machine could have a window seat upstairs without being too inconvenient. 

I'm imagining that over time, her space will evolve so that I'll have an extra set of essential tools beside this machine just as I do next to Big Bertha. All of my thread is downstairs, but I can work with that as needed.

Here's what the stitch regulator looks like. 

Unlike the Bernina where the stitch regulator is on the foot, this one is separate. The little disk to the left attaches to the quilt. In the image below, it's plugged in and charging, but it unplugs and operates wirelessly. I tried it both with and without the stitch regulator in the store, and I preferred it with. On the other hand, I had no problem stitching without it. We'll see. It came with the machine, and so what the heck?

Also included was the separate bobbin winder. It uses the larger "M" class bobbins. That will be nice.

It has a cool touch screen. Pretty straightforward.

And a nice brightly lit workspace. Wicked looking, isn't it?

Speaking of wicked, you didn't think we could set up something like this without Mr. Nosy Pants getting involved, did you?

Hm...and just how is this going to affect my window-sitting capability?

I think this has potential. I could hang a noose here and have a game of volley mouse.

This also has outstanding chin-scratcher potential.

So, phew. It passed inspection and is now apurroved for use.

Of course, it was late in the day by the time we got it all set up. Besides, I take my cues from the Wicked Witch of the West (there's that "wicked" word again).

I've found that these things are best handled delicately. To that end, I haven't played with it at all yet. So far, I've just kind of tippy-toed around it. I'm giving it time to settle into its new surroundings...making sure it doesn't explode, or jump out the window, or something else even worse. One never knows about these things.

Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow I'll be bold and thread me some needles.