My First Sewing Machine – Bernina 530

November 19, 2018

Hi all!!

It’s been a minute, so let me get straight to it…..I bought a sewing machine!!!!!!!!!!!

It happened while we were at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo in September. I had been thinking about it for a while and weighing my options –

Should I go ultra-inexpensive and buy the $100 machine at Target?

Do I think of it as an investment and just bite the bullet?

Or should I just steal one of my mom’s and hope she won’t notice???

Well after much debate and some great advice from quite a few experienced quilters (the saleswomen at Linda Z’s know what they’re talking about!), I purchased a beautiful new BERNINA 530!

Worth the investment

Okay to be honest, I kind of got swept up in the excitement of the Expo and just went for it. A classic impulse purchase – oops!

But I had already come to a few conclusions:

If I bought a very inexpensive – or even just less expensive model – I’d probably run the risk of out-growing the machine too quickly which might be discouraging creatively.
It would be frustrating to have to spend more money later on another machine when I could’ve put the initial $100 into it from the beginning.
I had to think of the machine as any other big purchase I’ve made – like my car. I may not use it every day, but I can be confident that when I do use it, it will perform smoothly.
If I treat it well, I’ll have it for many, many years to come.

Lots to learn

I haven’t made any masterpieces yet, but I’ve been watching the BERNINA videos on YouTube and I’ve already learned a lot!

I can confidently thread a bobbin, switch presser feet, play with the tension AND lower the feed dogs!

I’ve even played around with some FMQ which, interestingly, was both harder and easier than I expected….ha!

I tried the alphabet and even attempted Lori’s Silly Spiral and The Messy Spiral Rose (page 60-Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3) I need some more practice….