The goods.

Sometimes I am asked what machines I sew on and where I got them. Above all, I love myself a good habit. I buy the same ice cream over and over, I use the same deodorant every time I buy a new stick, and I like my machines to be the same as they've always been. When I first started sewing, I was small. I "made" things that were "pretty" as my mom hung her head in defeat. To say that I am rowing my own boat is the simplest way to put that. Ahem.

So, when I moved out of the house and on to bigger and better things (less than 100 square feet to call my own) I figured I would just go use my mom's machines when I needed to sew anything. Along came marriage, graduation and baby girl so I figured I better get domestic. My mom and husband split the cost of my serger, which is a (only very slightly) younger version of my mom's. A lot of people are able to sew beautiful things without a serger, but lover of habit that I am, I really wanted one of my own. I figured if I got a sewing machine first the serger would be trumped by other household necessities so I opted for getting the serger first. What can you do with only a serger? Not a whole lot as it turns out.

The serger I bought is a Bernette 234 was $150 used (I'm probably only 5 or so years older than it) at Dave's Bernina in Provo. It came with a 2 year service warranty and had been fully tuned and serviced before I bought it, and I had 4 free classes as well. Dave's does good work, and you just have to keep an eye on their used machines until you find what you are looking for. I'm really not sure why more people don't buy sergers... they are fairly inexpensive especially used, and I use mine with almost every single project I ever do. Valuable machine, that serger. 

A little while later, my husband scored my sewing machine (again, exactly the same as my mom's, except mine is blue and hers in grey-- that threw me off for a few months at least!) from a sweet lady on craigslist who had been the original owner and was ready to upgrade to a new Bernina (a pricey venture indeed).She had every original part, and had taken great care of it over the years, and it showed. It's a Bernina 910. Complete with table it was $450. See what I mean? Why don't more people buy sergers?

All in all, I'm super happy with what I've got. I've had minimal problems and Dave's has been super great. My husband did a truck load of research before we bought my machine, so if you've got any questions about what to buy we may be able to answer them between the two of us.