New Machine comes home

I've had a busy year with sewing machines..... more about some of them later. Suffice to say, I've wanted a Janome 6600 for a couple of years now so that I could do the work the way i thought it should be done with less hassles. In August, when I went to pick up my Janome needle felting machine, I also ended up coming home with a Babylock Quest because the price was just too good to pass up. Now this was gonna be the machine to create on at home. It was basically an unused machine (had been traded back by a beginner for a Pfaff cuz all her friends had them). I liked what it could do.....my one hesitation was the separate bobbin case. Having learned to sew on a Singer, I am a drop in bobbin fan, although I do have the other type in my Bernina and a 1966 White Zig Zag machine and I cope ok with them. I left on a 2 month work travel stint ( as a camp cook) to the Yukon and the mountains in SE BC so it never came out of the box until October. I took it to a Gloria Loughman workshop in Fernie (that was a great experience which I hope to blog about at another time). I spent time getting acquainted with it the night before the workshop so I wouldn't be a dunce about my machine. Once home, I found myself wanting to use the Platinum Jem (my travelling machine) instead of the Quest as the work I was doing seemed more suited to the smaller machine. I did use the Quest to create my fibre greeting card and had a number of tension issues. Now I've used the 70's singer with tension issues and come to terms with it so I wasn't too intimidated by this. But it continued to break the bobbin thread when it caught on the tiny spring. I woke up one morning after Christmas and decided I would go for the trade-in offered by the Janome dealer. He told me when I bought the Quest that if i wanted to trade it in on the 6600 within 6 months he would give me full credit for what I paid for it (less tax).

So, Dec. 28 found me driving to Medicine Hat with a sick laptop (turned out to be a factory recall service job = no charge) and the Quest to trade for a Janome. It turns out that the dealer (Dueck's Sewing Centre in Medicine Hat) opted for the sewing table instead of the rolling tote to go with the 6600's. WOO HOO. I love the table. It is a great size for my small studio and I can set up another table in front of it. I spent 2 days sewing stitch samples and playing with it so I feel comfortable with it before starting any projects. I've spent 6-8 hrs just playing with it!