Funny how things happen… As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been considering purchasing a new sewing machine since we moved here 18 months ago and I started quilting again.
I staved off that purchase by trading my 33 year-old Bernina in on my Mum’s slightly newer 25 year-old Bernina, at her suggestion. But as my skills have developed and my needs have grown, I realised that I needed a machine that was better able to do things such as free motion embroidery and the like.
I’ve done some investigation and had decided on the Husqvarna Sapphire 870. I was all ready to put in my order when my friend Bobbie offered to loan me her Sapphire 830 for a while. It was 12 months old but virtually brand new as she’d hardly used it while they were building their house, but she was thinking of upgrading to the latest Pfaff, which has just been released. However, she had to find out from the Pfaff people whether a particular part she’d bought for the Husqvarna would work on the Pfaff. She offered me a good price on her 830, should I decide to buy it *if* she decided to purchase the Pfaff.
Anyhow, long story short… Last week, Di from the fabric store asks if I’m still interested in the 870, Bobbie finds out that the new Pfaff will work with the part, and my Mum calls to say my old machine has died! So, Mum picks up her old machine, I decide to purchase the Sapphire 870 at Di’s ‘good deal’ price, and Bobbie decides not to get the new Pfaff, so I return hers to her. Phew!
I think the sewing machine fairies were at work last week making sure that this all happened the way it was meant to happen! Mum keeps her machine, Bobbie keeps hers, and my old now-dead machine gets replaced with a Husqvarna Sapphire 870! Meantime, my old machine is going to an ex-electrician at my folks’ retirement village who will see if he can fix it and then Mum will donate it to charity or one of the people in the retirement village.
BTW, my Mum has taken up basic sewing again. My niece (her granddaughter) visited an orphanage in Africa a couple of months ago and one way that she can help is to get people to make cloth nappies (diapers) and bibs for the babies out of old towels. So Mum’s doing a lot of that.
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 