quiltingnewbie

And I might be in love.

There was a sewing expo in town and I've been in the market for a new machine, so I decided to check it out. No Janome or Bernina machines on display (though each has a dealer in my town). I tried the Babylock booth first; in fact, visited three separate times over two hours, could not once catch the eye of a person working the booth. The Brother people were friendly, but only had entry-level sewing machines and the Dreamweaver, which is drool-worthy but far outside my budget. There was a Viking booth but the nearest Viking dealer to me is over 50 miles away; with three small children to haul around, that kind of distance is a dealbreaker for me.

I hesitated to approach the Pfaff booth because I know people have had issues with poor construction on newer ones, but I figured it couldn't hurt to look. The people in the booth (employees at a local shop) were nice and friendly, and invited me to sit down and try it out. I tried the Expression 3.2 (the 4.2 is out of my budget), and it was so much fun to use! I thought I'd be intimidated by a fancy machine, but it didn't feel intimidating at all. It has everything I'm looking for in a machine (and more). And I know it's probably silly, but I kind of fell for some of the special stitches it has (sailboats! Elephants!) I'm going to visit the shop this week to see if I really like it that much and if they might have a used model that would be cheaper.

I still feel like I should test-drive a Janome before I make a decision, but it's nice to know there's at least one machine I would definitely like to own.