Sewing & Quilt Expo

Last weekend, I managed to make it to the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo in Chantilly, VA. I had to juggle some stuff at work to be able to attend it, but I did manage to make it.  Since I used my phone to navigate there, it was mostly dead by the time I arrived, so I got very few pictures of all the shops, vendors and the amazing quilt displays.  I'm rather sad about the quilts, they really were amazing.

I managed to get this picture of a shop filled to overflowing (this is the back of the shop) with fiber.  Yarn, wool batts and all kinds of stuff for felting and knitting and so on.

I wandered until I found the Pfaff dealer and this wonder.  Yes, I found my embroidery machine, complete with my name on it.  Literally.  If that wasn't a sign it should come home with me, I don't know what is. 

I got the demonstration (where she made it actually write my name) from the great staff from SunSewVac in Alexandria, VA.  I then, wandered around the expo, shopped and basically fought with myself about my need for an embroidery machine.  Sure, I wanted one, but I don't really need one.  Life isn't all about need, thankfully.  I consulted with Honey.  I consulted my bank account.  I waffled.  In consulted a friend.  I waffled.  Finally, I purchased.  The most upsetting part was that they didn't have one at the show.  I had to return the following day to pick it up.  It isn't a horribly long way from my house (1 hour 20 minutes, assuming no traffic around D.C.) but I was like a kid on Christmas Eve.  I didn't want to sleep, I wanted to stay up all night, I was so terribly excited.  It was pure torture.  I was there about fifteen minutes after they opened the next day.  Ready to grab my machine and run home.  I was forced to do a little shopping.  I still had to find some embroidery thread.

Here we have the boxes before I got the shipping cardboard pulled off.  The embroidery attachment box is huge.  Since it includes a nice bag to carry all the embroidery attachments in, I'll forgive them.  I really splurged and picked up the embroidery software suite, which is pretty awesome.  It lets me put together embroidery designs from images in a multitude of formats.  I'm still learning the software, but I think I'll be able to make it do really amazing things.

In case you're worried, that I will lose my ability to sew, this machine does everything my previous Pfaff does and embroidery.  I love my Pfaff, and knew that I'd buy again.  Maybe not this soon, or this high up the line, but it was going to happen sooner or later.  (Besides, who says I can't set the embroidery machine up to do some embroidery and use my other machine for assembly at the same time?  Truthfully, no one that is my friend.)

Here it is, mostly set up.  I say mostly, because I was still trying to figure out how to properly attach the embroidery unit (the little plastic bit that keeps it from sliding around during shipping was not immediately evident).

Oh, yeah, and when I stopped at the thread booth, to pick up that rainbow of embroidery thread, I mentioned that I'd bought a new embroidery machine.  The nice shop-keep said "you've got the brush, now you've got the paint."  I like that.  I'm going to go paint.