I've been playing

I got my new machine last night and I am so excited. We were just going out to dinner shortly after it arrived, so I didn't get time to do anything except unpack it yesterday.

We had a great time last night. We went to a relatively new Japanese restaurant in town with our bible study group. There were 8 of us there and some had never had sushi before, so it was fun getting them to try new things. This is a really diverse, and great group of people and we always have a good time.

Today I got up early and have been playing. I've read about 1/2 of the manual and have tried out many of the sewing features. Then I took a trip to the BabyLock dealer because I knew there were some things that I needed. (A couple of feet, stabilizer, embroidery thread, extra bobbins, and a twin needle.) After that, I came home and set up the embroidery unit. It was a lot easier than I expected and I played with a few designs. I want to make a passport/boarding pass case to take on our trip and I want to monogram it in the front. I was really happy with all of the embroidery results I practiced. This is what I did:

There are a lot of expensive stabilizers out there, but I did these with the same tracing paper that I use to trace my patterns! I think I will be able to use it for lots of different fabrics, but I bought a sample set of a variety of stablizers so I can try them and see what I like best. I liked the tracing paper just fine.
Sewing with an electronic machine is SO different than a mechanical. the thing that is hardest for me to get used to right now is the fact that the presser foot lift is on the right hand side of the needle so you have to use your right hand to lift it.

Also, I have been working on the vogue dress. I've kind of put it aside, because I'm not sure I like what I'm doing. I decided I wanted to put bra cups in the top so that I wouldn't have to wear a strapless bra with it. according to the finished measurements on the bodice and the style of the dress, I didn't think I needed to do a FBA. However, I should have added an inch in length and didn't. I also needed to line the bodice front in order to add the cups. Because I did not add the inch, I decided to use the lining to make the casing for the straps instead of folding over the 1" allowed. I'm hoping that this will compensate for not adding to the length, but now I'm afraid to finish the dress. I did just run a piece of seam binding through the casing before I took this picture to see how it will fit, and maybe it will work. I guess I'll have to get on that.