Sewing Space Redo

Close to the end of February, Carolyn sent me a text asking if I was going to Expo and if she could tag along.  Seriously!  Who would say no to Carolyn?  I had made plans to head down to Expo with Niema, Bird & Bicycle, and Melizza.  Good thing I drive a jeep!  Even if I had to rent a minivan  there was no way I was telling Carolyn no.  Since I had just finished the fabric re-org, the push was on to get the sewing furniture rearranged before Carolyn got here.  

View from the hallway - as you enter the sewing space.

2 weekends ago - JB and I found that darling little dark brown desk that the coverstitch machine is on at a garage sale and paid $30 for it.  I have serger threads in the left side drawers and the right side drawers are currently empty.  As are the plastic drawers to the right of the desk.  We picked the desk up on Saturday and moved loads of furniture the next day.  

standing at the yarn cupboard, looking out.  

The space is so much more open now.  It's easier to get to the notions.  Although it still needs work - I need to work on pattern organization.  I need to aware of loading up the shelves under the cutting table again and piling stuff (patterns, fabric, etc) on top of the cutting table. 

Looking into the space from the sliding glass door.

I'm not sure why I ever moved the cutting table from under the light.  After using the new space on Sunday with Carolyn hanging out and giving guidance and gentle prodding - I've learned a couple of things - I need a lamp by the ironing board if I'm going to be working down here after dark and I need several more garbage cans.

The sewing space is working great for 2 people to work together in it.  There are chairs for sitting and doing handwork, and chairs for sitting and visiting and directing.

To Coverstitch or Not?

I've been sewing more knits lately and I'd like to improve my finishing.  I'm trying to decide if I want to take the plunge and buy a dedicated coverstitch machine.

 

  

So - talk to me.  Do you think it's worth it?  Has it improved your sewing?  Do your knits look more like Ready to Wear?  And do you use it? 

 

The one thing I don't want to do is purchase a new machine and not use it. 

 

One of the things that concerns me is that I have a serger that will do a coverstitch and I rarely convert it and use the coverstitch.  Mostly because when I want to use it - I'm constructing a garment using the serger and need to coverstitch between serging a seam.

 

For those of you who don't know what the coverstitch is or does - it's the seam you see hemming 90% of all commercial knits.  Here is a good example of what the coverstitch is, does and uses.

So - talk to me, please. 

Ready to Cry

I love my sewing machine - I really do.  I did a lot of research before deciding on this brand.  But right now I'm super frustrated. 

2 weeks ago, my machine stoped behaving properly.  See, this is the problem with having a completely computerized sewing machine.   The machine stopped recognizing where the foot was at and on this machine - I no longer have a way to manually lift or lower the foot.

I contacted a friend of mine who used to own a sewing machine shop - he's an excellent technician.  He had my machine for two weeks and I made my red wool dress (you haven't seen it yet) with my back up machine.  I couldn't use my specialty feet with that machine and I couldn't get a consistent seam allowance ~ I believe I'm gonna send that machine to The Princess who only does home dec stuff.  Anyway.  I got my machine back - Technician friend said he couldn't find anything wrong with it.  And that I was doing an excellent job keeping it clean.

Well today I plugged in the embroidery unit.  I have some overdue baby gifts to get done.  And guess what?  Yea - it's not working right.  So, tomorrow I'll take it to the local dealer.  But that's frustrating because they are really a Pfaff dealer and have Viking by default.  You can tell just walking in - they don't like these machines, but they are the only game in town.  What would you do? 

Edited to Add:  I took the machine to the Pfaff and Viking dealer.  I told them very clearly that I wasn't happy with the way they treated Viking owners and I would take my machine elsewhere in the future if I wasn't treated well.  I plugged the machine in to show them what it was doing - because it's hard to explain.  The good news?  I have a service contract that fixes my machine for FREE!  The bad news?  It will take at least 2 weeks.