A Date with 8

No, that isn't the same thing as my friend Kris at Cozy Cottage wrote about in her blog last week! Jim & I went to Hartford CT for a Bernina training on the new 830 sewing machine - Kris had a little more excitement with her date with 8, but I think that's excitement I can do without! You can find a link to Kris' blog on the left.


Hartford is about 4 hours from us & we could have gone there or to Baltimore - BUT by going to CT, I got a chance to spend the day with my friend from grade school, Betsey. In Baltimore I would have been in the hotel room working on samples - absolutely no thinking time needed for that destination decision! (I bought shoes and Betsey & I had our make-up done - what a hoot!)

This is the room full of anxious Bernina dealers waiting for Jill, the Bernina trainer, to tell us we could touch the machines. We were lucky, when we earned the incentive trip to Switzerland, we were given an 830 early, so we've had the machine in the shop for a month or so & have been able to play. Some in the room were seeing the machine for the first time.

(I like to sit up the back at these things, but I think when Jill saw our name tages, she assigned us seats up front where she could keep an eye on Jim, who loves to tease her.)

The training team & education departments have been hard at work making samples & had displays across the front of the room.

The tempation to take that birth announcement home with me, was almost too much to resist! It was really cute & I have all good intentions of making one for the shop . . . .

This is a piece of the tote bag we were supposed to be making at training. As usual, I came home with pieces of something & not a finished project. I have good intentions of actually finishing the tote bag but it will probably be pieces of it displayed for awhile!

We also started a computer cozy - yes, started. Another project that will be pieces . . . .

The whole purpose of the trainings - besides getting to see friends that you usually don't see! - is to get familiar with the machine, have a district meeting & go over new promotions, new marketing, etc, etc, etc. We are really supposed to go home & actually make the sample pieces into the project . . . .

The 830 is an AWESOME machine. It's big, with tons of room between the needle & the side of the machine, it's FAST & really easy to use. I was very sad when Roger, our district manager, said that our Swiss trip machines would have to go back to be updated and they would replace it with a new one. I don't want a new one!

Jim spent Thurs in sales training with me, then on Friday and Saturday, went to tech training where he was FINALLY able to take the machine apart and see what made it tick. The tech room is a frightening place to a non techie - lots of naked machines with people hooked to them by tiny wires attached to their wrists. Quite frankly, I don't want to know how or why it works, I just want it work!

That's Ernie hiding behind a machine on the left.

And this is Jim with Tom from Patchworks Plus in NY. Tom bragged while we were in Switzerland about flour from a local mill & how wonderful it was. He brought 5 pounds to training for me so I could try it. I'll let you know on Monday how it compares to my favorite King Arthur flour.

Till next time.