Happy New Year!

A very Happy New Year to everyone!
We will be interrupting the regularly scheduled programming (presents) to bring you...
Look what followed me home!

"My" new baby

Older cranky sister

She was traded in at the sewing shop - looks like she was never used.  One slight problem - only one foot came in with the machine.  No zipper foot.  No buttonhole foot.  There must be a solution to the problem.  On Friday night Joyce (the store owner) suggested that I should take her home for the week-end to try her out.  She has also sent a fax to her parts guy to see if feet can be obtained.  Well, try her out I did, ignoring a lot of other things that I should have been doing (including sleep).  I'll be keeping my other machine, which has fancy stitches, but also many quirks that oftentimes drive me absolutely crazy.  For a long time now I have been dreaming of a machine that would just stitch without complaining, giving me perfect stitches.  I just wasn't in a position to be "seriously" shopping for another machine.  Well, this just happened, and sometimes when things "just happen" you know that they were meant to be.  I'm ecstatic.  To-day the shop is still closed.  Tomorrow I will pop over there and hand over my "piece of plastic" to make the machine officially mine.
And what was I sewing to the exclusion (well, not quite that bad) of everything else?  Let's see, 2 pair of flannel pj pants that went together like a dream.  A scarf.  A little quilted pocket for stashing my glasses in my purse.  And ... 

a little dress (free download from Oliver + S) for a tiny little girl for whom I've been wanting to sew something for.  (That's the leftover flannel from one pair of pants.)

Look at the perfect stitches!  No problems with tension on purchased bias binding!  No more procrastinating with projects that I knew there would be problems with because of the machine!  Yes, I did try to target all the major "problem areas" with these quick projects.  And now may-be it's time to settle down and get back to "normal" (whatever that is around here).  I'll continue with posts about presents (just because I've already taken the pictures) and when I figure out what's coming next on the sewing front - I'll let you in on it.
If the acquisition of a new sewing machine that thrills me is any indicator - 2012 will be a wonderful year!