I Love My Little Anna!

As most of you know, I have participated in the American Sewing Expo's Passion For Fashion contest for the last few years. I was so very honored when I saw the garment that I created last year on this year's expo cover. I didn't win a place in the contest, but I was chosen as the People's Choice winner. I think that is pretty special:) Just quickly, I have to brag just a little. The model is Gabrielle. I absolutely love this gal! Wonderful model, gorgeous, so very sweet and she is brilliant on top of it all. She graduated as valedictorian of her senior class and she is now having a blast in college. I think she is going to set the world on fire!

 And here she is in the outfit that I created this year. Smokin'!!!!

The Passion For Fashion contest is sponsored by Babylock. I bought my first Babylock machine quite a few years ago, a serger. I LOVE this machine and I will not own any other brand of serger now that I have owned this machine. No one paid me to say that BTW! 

It's the Babylock Evolve, an eight thread serger, it basically does everything short of washing my dishes!! Fabulous machine. You can see that it is well used. I should have cleaned out my waste catcher before I took the picture. Their new serger is call Evolution. I have not looked at this machine, so I really can't say much about it, but if it is anything like my Evolve, it's a great machine. One of the best things about the machine is the way it threads itself. What a wonderful invention.

For the Passion For Fashion contest, there were three top prizes. In all honesty, I REALLY wanted to win. I was REALLY disappointed that I didn't. Actually, I did win third place, just not the place that I wanted :( But, if you've followed my blog for some time, you know that I believe that everything works out for the best in the end and that is true here as well.
The little machine that I won is the Anna and I must admit that I am so very happy with this machine. For a small machine, it does so much, has lots of stitch options, sews through very thick layers of fabric and it weighs almost nothing. For years I have lugged around a heavy Bernina machine (sorry Babylock!) when I travel. Not anymore though. Anna and I will now be traveling partners.

 There are a lot of great little features. It does have a free arm.

When you take the piece off for the free arm, you'll find a little compartment that is wonderful for storing the extra feet, bobbins, needles, whatever you might need when you are on the go.

Another feature that I really like is the thread holder.

It pops off for traveling! Great little feature.  I love it. I can just pop it off and store it with the extra feet and bobbins. Nice and compact.

Babylock is a wonderful and generous company. Each time that I have participated in the contest, they have always sent a thank you gift. This year they sent a pair of Gingher scissors, a pad with an attached pen, bottle cozies,

and a charger for the car. Great little advertising tool :)

In my thank yous, I can't leave out the American Sewing Expo team. First of all, they do everything they can to make a very stressful situation a little less stressful. They sent us home with a bag that has lots of great pockets. You can see my Metropolitan Opera travel cup stashed safely away :) At first I thought that the bag might be big enough to hold my machine, but sadly, it was just a little too small. But it gave me a great idea, I'll just make a travel bag for Anna. Every girl needs her own bag after all!!!

ASE also gave us a big roll of Create-A-Pattern. I have not given it a try, but it looks like a good product. You can read more about it here.

The garment I created was sent back to me this week. I'll blog a little more about the process of creating the outfit next week. I had intended to do it this afternoon, but my morning got away from me.
Whenever you are in the market for a new machine, put Babylock on your look at list. I've been very happy with the quality of their machines.