Friday, August 21, 2020

Meet Bernard

 If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen that I bought a new sewing machine.



Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains Affiliate Links. When purchases are made through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Your purchases help support my small business and keep my husband's head from exploding everytime a new quilting notion arrives in our mailbox. Thank you for that. Find out more about Affiliate Links Here.


It's my first Baby Lock machine and my first brand new machine. I've been blessed to have been given a few sewing machines over the years, and I will always be grateful for them. This shiny new baby has me super excited all the same.



Why Bernard?

Well my sister got a new puppy (I think we're both quite happy with our respective "new" things) and it was named Bernard.



Doesn't he LOOK like a Bernard?! She refused to keep the name though, and I liked it so much I said, "Fine. I'll name my new sewing machine Bernard." Wouldn't you know, it stuck. Ha!


Now I get to introduce him as my new Baby Lock Brilliant, Bernard. Not gonna lie, I love it! 😍



I'm a quilter to my core, and piecing is my jam, so what do you think the first thing I did was?



Oh yeah, fill ALL THE BOBBINS.


25 to be exact. (Two cases of 12 and the one that was in the machine.)



It took 1 1/2, 547 yard spools of Gutermann grey polyester thread, my go to for piecing.


Click on the picture to be taken to the Bobbin Holders available from The Fat Quarter Shop.


I almost have my favorite bobbin holder completely filled. (Dang! I see they have a purple one now, I'm going to have to get another one and fill more bobbins.) I don't mind filling bobbins, but I do hate to run out in the middle of a big piecing project. This doesn't necessarily keep that from happening, but it certainly cuts back on how often it happens.



One of my new favorite things on Bernard is the Start/Stop button. Stepping on the foot pedal to fill 25 bobbins can make your foot sore, that button was awesome. It's the little things, don't judge. Ha!



Another favorite, yet extremely frightening, thing is the Needle Threader. No lie, this week I *struggled* to thread a needle. Apparently, when you hit your 40's your 20/20 vision quickly goes downhill. This needle threader though!!!  I shut my eyes and hope I don't break something when I use it, but it's amazing and soooo much faster than me squinting at it.  I believe I can pretend I have great eye sight for a few more years.



Did you see the quilting I shared on Instagram this past weekend? You know what would have been awesome for that? The knee lift. I *almost* broke Bernard out of the box to try it, but I didn't want to mess with a new machine in the middle of a deadline. But this thing is awesome, and I'm going to have to find it in me to quilt like that again, just to enjoy the knee lift.



Bernard sews a beautiful stitch and I'm so excited to start my next project. It's going to be hard getting enough sleep each night when I can be stitching away with this beauty! I look forward to sharing my projects with you.

Happy Stitching!
Jen

New to Patterns By Jen?





Find paper, digital patterns, and Studio 180 Design rulers in my Etsy shop.

Find fun PBJ merchandise at Teespring


Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily sneak peeks and updates.




5 comments:

  1. Enjoy getting to know Bernard over the weekend! He's a good lookin' machine! (Okay, back to writing the color challenge post . . .)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Enjoy your weekend sewing and using Bernard!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bernard is a beautiful 🤗🤗🤗

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sew excited for you. I love the start/stop as well.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I read your affiliiate disclosure to my hubby, who absolutely loved the part about your husband's head exploding everytime a new notion showed up in your mailbox. LOL!! He totally knows the feeling, execpt I don't have a blog, so no affiliates! :-) I could be in real trouble here!! :-) I do enjoy your posts, having only joined recently. Keep up the great work!

    ReplyDelete

I love to get your comments and hear your ideas. I always respond to comments (though it may take me a few days), if you haven't heard from me it might mean you are a no reply commenter. If you haven't heard back from me, check back here, because I will reply to the comment.