Meet my new Brother!

I have the best Mum on the whole wide world! Seriously.

Spotlight had another one of their $10 VIP coupon promotions running last week, so Mum and I caught up for coffee and a chat followed by a trip to Spotlight.. Because really, who wouldn't want to hang out with their mum at a fabric store?

As a bonus, all their Easter stuff was 50% off so we bribed the kids by letting them go crazy with Easter decorations and craft projects! Smart, yes?

So while we were wandering around looking at the "boring fabric stuff" I noticed an embroidery machine on their clearance table. A closer inspection found it to be a Brother Innovis 750d embroidery machine. A quick google on my phone revealed that it had a retail price of around $1100ish and some excellent reviews. Did I mention it's also the Disney model? Strictly for personal use of course, but that's fine - there are plenty of small children in my life that have birthdays and Christmases coming ;)

Source: Brother.com

The best part is that the clearance price was $299! Too good to pass up, and my Mum agreed.. she offered to purchase it for me! A quick phone call to my husband (so he could confirm that it was a machine "worth" buying - which he did) and we were on our way to the checkout. The husband had confirmed that aside from the memory cards that can be purchased it was all good to go as far as purchasing online digitised embroidery designs and making up our own designs and loading them on. Woo!

My 2 day stash ;)

The not best part was that we were so exhausted by the time we'd decided to buy the machine that Mum and I didn't think about buying embroidery threads & stabiliser, so we had to wait 2 days until  Monday so that we could finally fire it up and try it out! Although on the up side, my husband is SO excited about this machine (so much so that you'd think it was *his* new toy!!) that he even came to Spotlight with me to buy thread and stabiliser which means that I have rather an "impressive stash" for someone who has owned her machine for less than a week. He's also purchased Embird Embroidery Software with all the extras (because have I ever mentioned that he's a Software Engineer  and loves all things software related?) and has spent the last 3 days digitising designs for the kids. I think he knows more about my new machine than I do!

*My* first attempt, using one of the inbuilt designs.

Our second embroidery design, purchased from Designs by Juju

2x finished muslin bunny rugs for my brand new nephew (name blurred)
Designs both from Designs by Juju

Infact he's declared that everyone we know will now be receiving embroidered gifts for the rest of forever. Sooooo amused. Meanwhile, I haven't had any time to quilt because I've been too busy "helping" him play with "his" new machine! But I need to get cracking on the quilting because I'm SO close to finishing the Harry Potter quilt top and it needs to be quilted, bound and finished by the 1st May  (Bean's birthday)... although now I'm sure the quilt label will be a little fancier!

The husband's first digitised design (of a certain pig Blossom requested, who shall remain nameless)

Attempt #1 - about 6 attempts later, we've ironed out the kinks in the dress!

I wanted to give my new machine a name (I was thinking Daisy) but my husband has "forbidden" it - he thinks it's silly. I pointed out that all his computers have names (server names), to which he replied that once it could be logged onto over the internet, then I could name it. But we don't have to tell him that I named it anyway, right?

Daisy might seem like a weird name to give a *Brother*.. but it's kind of appropriate.. when Blossom was littler the way she pronounced her brother's name came out sounding like "Daisy", so Daisy it is!