The Road to CA was great. I bought fabric for all2pieces, kassaundra's (the ladies waiting on line actually voted on whether the fabric was lime enough, it got an almost unanimous vote), and whoever wanted white on white. Now for the white on white I had three choices: stork with baby, something that looked like male private parts to me but I'm sure was something else, and umbrellas. I was tempted.... but I went with the umbrellas.
I did not buy the sitdown machine but I did start looking into buying a used sitdown. the Sweet Sixteen people were very helpful with this and they weren't making any money off of it. Also looking at the George, which is considerably more expensive. If you've used either of these let me know.