Elna Carina Sewing Machine

One of the unfortunate side effects of going to the quilt expo each year is that I leave wanting to upgrade my sewing machine to a fancier one that can do cooler stitching or better quilting.

My current sewing machine was built in the 80's and is a hand me down from someone in our family. I've used it for the past 15 years or so and it's always done the job. But after helping out with one of the quilt workshops I was even more convince that I should maybe start saving for a new machine.

There were just all these nifty attachments that made quilting so much easier!

However, this past weekend I pulled out this little container with attachments that came with my sewing machine. I started playing around with some of the attachments and discovered that I can actually do many of the techniques that these fancier machines can do!

The two attachments I'm most excited about is that I have a quilting foot (this lets you do free motion quilting) and then a seam guide (this attaches near the foot of the machine and adjusts to whatever seam allowance you want).

Who knew? I've had these attachments for years but since I didn't have an instruction manual...I never took the time to research what all these attachments can do or how to even attach them to the sewing machine.

That was kind of nice to find out because I really didn't want to start saving $2,000 for a new sewing machine.

So my hand me down sewing machine that is 30 year's old is actually pretty cool.

Rio vs. Barbie

Babysitting this weekend I had the chance to view two movies I hadn't seen yet: "Rio" and "Barbie in a Mermaid Tail". I had been curious about Rio and had never heard of this particular Barbie movie.

Sadly, I have to admit that I think I enjoyed the Barbie movie more than Rio. All I can say is that the Barbie manufactures sure have done their homework on how best to market to a girl's heart. I mean come on...how can a blue bird that can't fly ever compete with a hip surfer teenager from Malibu who finds out that she's a mermaid princess and as a result gets the chance to save the sea kingdom from an evil aunt and spend at least 10 minutes of the movie shopping for new mermaid tail outfits while singing a catchy song? Sorry Rio...you just couldn't compete.

What's even sadder is that the kids I was watching actually sat through the whole Barbie movie enthralled. While within 5 minutes of Rio, they were distracted by their toys.

I wonder how much research does go into kids movies like Barbie. Cause, they sure do know how to keep the attention of not only a 4 year old girl but an 8 year old boy and a 30 year old woman who should know better than to get sucked into clever marketing movies.

Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice

Pumpkin Spice Latte....check
Apple Picking...check
Apple Sauce canning...check
A little bit of fall cleaning...check
Curl up with a blanket watching the rain...check
Pull out the fall brown boots to wear with my brown plaid skit...check
Start a fall quilt...check
I think I'm ready for fall.