Sewing

I have two friends who have had little girls lately and I’ve been meaning to make something for them… finally got around to it today!  I still have to finish the second skirt, but both sets of shoes are done (the shoes are reversible – denim one side, spots the other) Sewing for little girls is so much fun!!!

No sorry, not the one we’re all waiting for! I finally got a new sewing machine!!!!! I thought some would enjoy the story of how it finally came to be! (It’s long!)

I have been praying for a new sewing machine for about a year or two. When we first got married mum said I could use hers, which I did until it finally died about 6 months ago or so. Erica (a friend) then lent me hers, but even it was struggling to keep up with some of the sewing (particularly polar fleece and knit fabrics) that I needed and wanted to do.

A few months ago I purchased a machine on ebay… long story short, it never arrived, we had no way of getting the money back and the seller was not replying to any communication we sent. I’m not sure why the Lord allowed all of that to happen, but I do believe that He will/has taken care of it in the way He wants to and that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

I hadn’t really put a lot more thought into getting a machine, I figured that I would just keep praying, I knew there wasn’t money to spend on one and I would just have to trust that if the Lord wanted me to have one, He would provide it! Along rolls my birthday…. and mum suggests we have a look at sewing machines, maybe she can pay the deposit on a laybuy for my birthday. Whilst the idea seemed nice, I have to admit to not being terribly convinced – I still felt like there was no way I could save up enough to actually get what I wanted and I didn’t want to waste money on something that was just going to frustrate me because it couldn’t do what I needed to do (I knew I was going to want to spend at least $700, possibly more like $1300). I was given some money for my birthday from Jer’s parents and from Liz McClure … and started to wonder whether I should put it into a “sewing machine fund” … even tho the end goal seemed somewhat impossible. Jer wanted to buy me some jewellery for my birthday and had some money set aside for that, but when I told him about the sewing machine idea, my indecision about whether or not I saved up for it etc, he told me that depending on how badly I really wanted it, I could put that money towards it too if I wanted to…. more decisions!!!! I finally decided that I would do that, that even if it took another year or two at least I had a start, and I would just put aside what I could, when I could.

So thus begins the “sewing machine fund”. October 23rd, Balance of Sewing Machine Fund: $130.

Now comes the exciting bit

Some months ago I did some web design work for a church in victoria. We had told them once we finished that we didn’t expect payment, that if they wanted to send us something that would be fine, but we would leave it up to them. We hadn’t heard anything, and to be honest, I figured that was the end of it – and that was fine, I was glad I had been able to help out. However, on Thursday, as we were leaving the house for our “family day” activity the mailman arrived with some mail for me I was completely blown away to open it and discover a cheque for a very substantial amount of money for the job I had done. We banked it straight away and then started to work out what we would do with it. The Lord has really helped us over the last year to have a much more stable financial position and it was very nice to not have to automatically use the extra money to pay outstanding bills but instead to be able to consider our current needs and what He would have us do with it.

We were taking the tarago in the next day for (more) repairs… so some was going on that, at that point we were unsure how much. I asked Jer if maybe I could use some of it to get a sewing machine… he said yes!!!!!!!!!!

There were some other things we have been waiting a while to get for our house that we decided we would use it for as well – so we went on a small ikea spending spree and finally purchased a rug for the lounge amongst a few other things.

Anyway…. over the course of the next week or so we were able to pay for the car repairs, purchase some really lovely things for the house, use some of the money to be a blessing to others, and I ended up with approx $800-900 to spend when the shopping day came around (Mum had come down to look at machines with me).

I was still a little unsure as to what I wanted to get. Whether to spend $700 or $1300 (which would have required waiting a little longer obviously) on a new machine … whether the price difference was worth the difference in the machines … or whether to try and find a second hand machine that did some embroidery as well at one of the sewing shops that was similar to the one i had hoped to purchase on ebay (I wasn’t really sure if I would end up doing much embroidery even if I had a machine that did it, but wanted the opportunity to find out). I prayed the night before and as we left again in the morning that the Lord would help me to find a Janome Memory Craft second hand within my budget. The ebay machine was a MC8000 – and I had purchased a scanner for that to do my own embroidery designs before I realised the machine wasn’t coming!

We went to the Janome shop at Everton Park. I wasn’t really very keen on the idea of travelling all over Brisbane looking at machines so was pretty determined to just buy something from there. The lady showed me two of the new machines (the same two I had looked at a few months ago, the $700 and $1300ish ones) … and as she was talking I realised there was a Memory Craft on the table towards the back of the store… I asked about it and it turned out to be a MC9000 (the next model up from what I had hoped for) and it was only $599!!!!! (She said they are a lot cheaper now as the newer machines have a much bigger memory for embroidery, and because the screens and boards are no longer being produced, rendering the machine useless if either dies).

We had a look at it, had a quick sew… and decided to buy it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because the machine ended up being cheaper than expected, mum said she would buy me some embroidery threads and bits and pieces for it for my birthday. So not only do I now have a fantastic new machine that sews beautifully, quickly and just about any fabric I can put near it… but a wonderful range of lovely embroidery threads and all the bits I need to make that work!!!!!!!!!

And after all that, we still had money left over to buy a new futon mattress for a frame we were given for the lounge room!!!!

God is so good and so totally exceeded my expectations – though that really shouldn’t surprise me! I learnt a good lesson in “Do what you *can* do and God will do what you *can’t* do” – I put aside the money I had, knowing that finding the rest would be impossible on my own… but less than 2 days later, the Lord provided abundantly above what I could have hoped for!

So that’s the long-winded story of how my new “baby” arrived…. I’m glad now that I have something to keep me busy while we wait for the next Smith baby to arrive! (Anytime now would be fine!) There will be lots of photos of new creations as I test out the scanner and the embroidery (the girls already have a new hankie each with their name on it – they really enjoyed watching the machine “write” their names ).