New Machine Added to My Fleet: Baby Lock Soprano

Like last year, my Dad generously offered to buy me a new machine as a combination birthday/Christmas present.

My full intention was to get the Baby Lock Cover Stitch, but after thinking about how I would only use the cover stitch with knits, and would use a new, more powerful machine every.single.time I sewed....

I, ahem, found myself on Sunday morning of the ASE in Novi, MI at the Baby Lock booth, asking a saleswoman to show me a machine in Dad's price range without having done any research at all on sewing machines. (If you know me, you know how deeply unusual that behavior is!)  The saleswoman sat me down in front of the Soprano.  I responded, "Is this because I'm from New Jersey?"    The price was significantly reduced because it's a classroom model, and they would ship it to me for free (or I could have checked it with my luggage, but I declined!).

Honestly, it has many of the same features as my Brother Project Runway PC-420 that was only around $400 3 years ago, but its main outstanding feature, after sewing one costume and one dress, is its sheer power.  It sews through thick junctures pretty effortlessly, and it seems to purr while doing so.  I want to make jeans again and a jean jacket, and I'm pretty hopeful that it will handle denim easily.  Having the right tools for the job and all that.

This is without the extension table.

It also has a ton of buttons, stitches, and like 9 different kinds of buttonholes.  It is also a large machine,  with a wider bed which will make sewing bags easier, and comes with an extension table which I have not set up yet.  Over Christmas vacation (I am taking the week between Christmas and New Year's off again, YES!)  I really want to do a reorg of my sewing room.  Right now there are 5 machines on my desk; I want to reduce the number to 3.  I also want to get all the fabric into the fabric closet.  A girl can dream!


Decent posture, but forward sloping shoulders, yo!

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.  I can say that more than a year after serging with my Baby Lock Enlighten, it is a total dream machine and handles thick junctures like a hot knife through butter.  My old serger would have gone clunk-snap.  It threads itself and adjusts its own tension.  Love it!!

So thank you Dad for this new addition to my fleet of machines, and for driving over to the Fed Ex facility to pick it up and dragging it back to my place and up the stairs!
Be well!