I TOTALLY CALLED IT. I knew that talking about my sewing machine in public would anger it. After I wrote that post, I sat down to put together some blocks for a new baby blanket. Sure enough, the tensioning is all jacked up AGAIN, and I spent an hour trying to get it to work AGAIN. This is the bajillionth time I've had this exact same problem with it; it would hum along fine as long as I was sewing on cotton fabrics exclusively with standard cotton threads, but the second I deviated from that formula, BLERG and BLARG and PHBOOOT. It would break down and I'd have to send it into the shop, where they would repair it for $80 until the next time it decided to go all wonky. I lived in fear of changing materials, changing threads, changing the tension on my own; any of those three would throw that machine off.

This time was the last time, though. The Singer pissed me off enough that I pitched her to the side (figuratively; pitching a sewing machine would cause a lot of damage to walls, methinks) and purchased something new. Uh, make that new to ME.

Meet my new baby. A Husqvarna Viking Quilt Designer, which was a trade in that someone brought in at the local Joann's (our Joann's hosts a Husqvarna dealer inside of it). I was headed in there to find something cheap and quick to get me through the next six months, but when I saw her, I just HAD to have her. Look at the size of that throat! (Heh.) The quilting table! The fancy pantsness! I'm just getting used to using her, but man, it's like a whole different world using this thing. You get so used to your own machine's quirks and weirdnesses that when you are presented with a machine that works like it is supposed to, every time, it kinda throws you off. I keep expecting the presser foot to not engage all the way, but on this machine it automatically lowers the presser foot when you start sewing. I never have to worry about that tangled mess of thread you get because, DUH, you didn't make sure it was all the way down. The bobbin literally THREADS ITSELF through the machine. It came with all the feet I could need, and the two that I really, really needed for quilting were either thrown in for free (a darning foot) or included at 50% off (a walking foot). I'm adjusting to the little beeps and bloops this thing emits when I'm sewing, and I have to remind myself that there is no presser foot latch on the back of the machine, like my Singer had; those two columns of buttons right over the needle control the foot, the needle down, and I'm sure a host of other things that I'm not using properly as of yet.

My first official project on this machine is a 9 patch baby blanket, with sashing between the blocks.

But my first true test of this thing will include this:

and this:

and a certain dress pattern that is burning up the net.

I got sucked in.

We've debated about getting one of these bad boys for a while now; Mike has his beloved XBox 360 and Halo 3 that really takes up the majority of the gaming time, and we've also got a Playstation 3 just for the Blu-Ray player, so I figured we were pretty well set as far as gaming systems go. Plus, there was the added benefit of not being able to find the suckers for so long; running across one was like unearthing oil in your backyard. So when I was in Best Buy the other night and I saw one sitting out on the table, I snatched it up without another thought.

It's AWESOME. Everything everyone told me it would be. We also bought MarioKart with it, along with a spare controller and an additional spare wheel, and we played against each other for a few hours the first night we had it up and running. Hell, even Bryan thought it was neat – it's a game that doesn't really require him to do much more than push one button and steer; as far as a three year old is concerned, that's the best possible scenario. It also came with Wii Sports, which I plugged in last night and had a blast playing tennis and bowling. I've even gone as far as to order the Wii Fit, because I'm a giant dork and it looks really cool.

I suddenly see a little less knitting in my future.