Going Out On Their Own

The set of Bernina 1006-1008's that I acquired in November and wrote about in Triplets and Speed Demons and Slow Pokes have finally been put together enough to list for sale. At least two of them have good cords and foot controls and one has an accessory box and extra feet. That will make one a very nice machine and the other one a good buy! The third one is going to have to wait on the shelf until more parts come along to be set-to-rights. Here's what happened to the Bernina 1008 that is oh so complete.

As written about earlier, these machines came to me a cast-offs from a school and needed some TLC and did they get it. All cleaned up, tuned up, and ready to run, they still were missing the accessory box, extension table, and a nice set of feet. There are not many accessory boxes out there for sale and I needed to be sure they would fit the models I had. Over the past six weeks there have been three or four on Ebay and included fairly large sets of feet but they also came with large price tags, out of my reach. I finally did find one and managed to outbid everyone and it came in the mail in great shape:

Bernina 1000-1008 accessory box

Bernina accessory box on back of the machine extends the work space

and it fit! Quite impressed, I now needed to add some of the Bernina presser feet but that proved to be a bit of a challenge, too. There is a whole evolution of presser feet from Bernina and this style was considered the "old style" in contrast to the "new style" but are not the "old, old style" that I had so many extras lying around. Here's the difference:

Old version on left with small prongs, old-old version on right with thicker prongs

The newer feet had narrow prongs/fittings; that means they can be used on the older sewing machines but the old, old style cannot be used on this newer model because they are too thick. Pretty tricky on their part, huh? As with so many of these items for sale, there are more of the old, old style and not so many of the old style so they seem to sell at a higher cost. I even found some large sets but they had mixed up the different types and had old, old with old. Yes, I could buy them all and save those I didn't need yet but it's still fairly expensive! A small set finally did come my way:

Three came together and I found a fourth in my stash

and they will go to the 1008. Feeling a bit successful yet still knowing these sewing machines were incomplete, I decided to pursue the larger, more expensive sets. I wrote to the seller asking if I could get a deal if I bought two of them. Yes, not a huge deal but $20 less for each one so I took the offer. They were delivered in record time and, boy, was I excited: they were not only perfect but complete:

Wow: does it get any more complete than a rack of feet AND accessories?

Top of box opens for easy access

Although they cost more I ended up getting so much more. I feel confident when selling these lovely Bernina sewing machines that the new owner will have everything they need. In fact, I'm even going to purchase a new foot control and power cord so they are all working perfectly because they are worth it. What's the big deal about this particular sewing machine? It is not only excellent quality, they are easy to use, have a better quality of stitches, portable, and good for a beginner as well as someone wanting/needing to upgrade their beginner sewing machine.

While waiting for all of these different parts to arrive and Super Bowl LII to start (and in Minnesota it was a pretty big deal, even if we weren't playing) I made up another sewing machine cover with those quilt blocks from my sister. This time I tried out my own designs for the free motion work on the front and sides:

Pin cushion motif

Scissor outline

discovering you do have to pad the work with batting so it will have the dimension necessary to show it off.  The sewing machine outline had to be done twice so not that great but I was very happy with the pincushion, something I simply drew put and stitched. Sometimes simple is better.

Sewing machine outline before stitching (no padding)

All sewn together, I like how it turned out. I would try the free motion again but I'm not into the quilt piecing as much as I would like and it just isn't necessary when making a sewing machine cover. But who ever said it was about necessity?

Quilt block sewing machine cover with free motion embellishment