Day in Lincoln - Sewing Machine Shopping

I had such fun day yesterday. My husband had a Nebraska Cattlemens meeting in Lincoln so I rode along and visited my 94 yr old aunt in the morning and took her out to lunch at Red Lobster - YUM! I don't get to Lincoln often but like to visit her when I do get there and we had a good time catching up on family news and just plain chatting. She looks so much like the way I remember my grandmother looking when I was a kid it is really kind of strange. I wonder who I will resemble as I age - I know I resemble my dad who also resembled my grandmother so maybe I will carry on the Sarah Anne Elizabeth Pickering Batie look too.

The afternoon was just as much fun. I spent the day at the Bernina dealer finding out about the stitch regulator and just playing on the machines. I am toying with the idea of getting a new machine and selling my 150 QE but wanted to know if I would like the stitch regulator on these machines before I committed to buying one. I had never tried one out other than a quick try on one at the Bernina booth at Paducah and didn't want to invest the money on a newer model Bernina unless I knew I would like that feature. That is really the only reason I would trade up as my 150 works great. I really did like that stitch regulator and could run the machine and my first efforts looked pretty good. One concern I had been if I could see behind the needle. From the photos of the machine it looked like the stitch regulator foot was directly behind the needle but it actually is slanted more to the right of the needle so you can see really pretty well.

A feature I did like on the 730 was the thread cutter. You get to the end of your stitching and push this little button and the machine puts the needle down pulling the top thread to the bottom and cuts both threads under the feed dogs. Amazing! It has a needle threader too but didn't try that out - just watched Joann show me how it worked. Tried out several of the stitches but mostly concentrated on the stitch regulator.

Of course there are many other features on these machines and have literature here now to try and digest. Want to compare features between the 640 and 730 and decide which model I really want. There is a new Bernina being announced in July but if it is something I would rather have I can always trade up - a nice feature of the Bernina company.

Now to ponder....which machine?

Lynn