I've been waiting for YEARS to buy a sewing machine, but while we lived in apartments it just wasn't practical. Where would I keep her? With Halloween approaching I finally bit the bullet at the beginning of September and purchased a machine. Why? Well there is a particular (simple) Halloween costume I want to make Lucky and it requires the use of a sewing machine if I didn't want to torture myself with hand sewing. So here she is!
If I was ever going to film an unboxing video, this would be my chance. However, I don't know what have the parts are called so it would be me saying, "Here is this doodad and this thingymagig." From the labels, it looks like this is the list of what I've got:
- Zigzag foot A (on machine)
- Zipper Foot E
- Satin Stitch Foot F
- Automatic Butonhole foot R
- Concealed Zipper Foot
- 1/4" Seam Foot
- Screwdriver (flat strange piece)
- Bobbins
- two sets of needles (size 12 and 14)
- Seam ripper
- Large & Small Spool Holders
- Spool Stand,
- Felt
- Additional Spool pin
I thought that I'd put on project runway while I was setting up the machine, but I really REALLY need the manual. I don't know how to wind a bobbin! The first (brown) bobbin was really wonky, but I didn't realize that I needed to lower the bobbin onto the stand thing. The black bobbin winding went much better.
When I ordered my machine I also ordered some fabric for the first few projects in the book 1, 2, 3 Sew: Build Your Skills with 33 Simple Sewing Projects
by Ellen Luckett Baker (see my review). Unfortunately the machine arrived before the fabric, so I pressed out some scraps from my no sew pillows and played around with the machine.Since my first project is going to be Lucky's costume I figured I'd start playing with the wonky brown bobbin and thread. You can't really tell, but I did sew two (fairly) straight seems and even reversed the second one at the end a bit to secure the thread! Woot woot! I am sewing on the slowest setting so I can figure out some control. Of course, working on only one piece of fabric right now I have no idea how I'd use a seam ripper to remove these stitches.
When I was playing with the zigzag stitch (playing with width and closeness) I can tell that my tension is too great for this single piece of quilting cotton. The tension improved once I started stitch two pieces of fabric together (as one would expect.) Lower Numbers = less tension!
I also ordered a Fiskars Fabric Cutting Set
which has a wide clear ruler, a cutting mat and a rotary cutter. I'm still waiting on my fabric scissors and seam ripper to arrive in the mail, but those should be showing up any day now. 
Well look at that, I'm off and ready to continue sewing. Now I just need to get my fabric out for my first projects. Yowza!
Is there anything I should add to my sewing kit to get started? I'm very new at this so I'm looking for recommendations for basically everything!
