Hi everyone! I'm Shannon and I'm the blogger behind luvinthemommyhood.com - a fun, friendly neighbourhood connecting creative moms. 

I was so excited when Maryanne and Caroline asked me to be part of their fun new series "my best friend"!  Such a great idea!  When it came time to write my post I had originally intended to talk about the people in my life who have had a huge influence on me when it came to sewing but I just kept coming back to one of my fave things in life - my sewing machine Poppy.  Yep, that's right.  She's got a name.  Poppy the Pfaff is one of my best buds.  I spend all my spare time with her, tell her all my secrets, cry with her, laugh with her, cheer with her, get angry at her, and just plain love the buckets outta her.  She's my sewing machine.

When I first started sewing I was using a basic run of the mill sewing machine that my lovely mom/dad gifted me for xmas way back in 2001 if I remember correctly.  It was a great machine for a starter and did me just fine for what I needed for years and years.  It lived for a long time in storage until I started this blog and decided to dust it off and brush up on my skills and really learn how to sew.  Now that machine (which is lovingly referred to as "the devil" in my house) went through war and back.  I did some not so nice things to it while learning how to sew.  I sewed on that machine much more than a person probably should have and and will openly admit to improper usage of fabrics/stitches/needles and all the other common mistakes newbies make.  It's never been serviced/cleaned or properly taken care of.  It was loved though, albeit in a love/hate kinda way.

You see, as I was learning I fell more in love with sewing and more out of love with my machine.  I simply outgrew it.  I couldn't afford to get a new one so I had to make due with what I had.  I don't think my machine liked that very much.  It started getting grumpier and grumpier, sewing wonkier and wonkier and then just began crapping out on me when I had deadlines and needed to be sewing.  Yep, not a good thing when you are a blogger with things to sew.  I cried many a tear and even admit to whacking it with my scissors more than a few times....lmao...now that was a sight to be seen.

So instead of having to end up in Sewing Machines Anonymous I decided to start saving all my hard earned pennies (a huge thank you to all my wonderful sponsors!!!) so I could finally buy a new one.  Luck would have it my birthday was around that time and my loving family all chipped in and gave me money towards my new machine as a gift (thanks again everyone).  So on my birthday last year I went and picked up my dream machine - the Pfaff Ambition 1.0.  I love her and she loves me.  We get along just great.  I know there are way fancier machines on the market (shhh...don't tell her I said that) with a lot more bells and whistles but she has everything that I need and want...for now (wink, wink).  I put a lot of hours into research when it came to choosing a new machine and you can read all about the process here:

*sewing 911 - the new baby is home

*sewing 911 - how the heck to choose & buy a sewing machine

*sewing 911 - what's your machine of choice?

 I'm so beyond thrilled with this machine.  After buying my Pfaff my sewing skills got so much better and sewing overall became a much more relaxing and efficient process.  No more busted machines, wonky bobbins and scary buttonholes.  Now it's smooth, streamlined, powerful and technological.  The oomph my Poppy has is amazing. She will sew through anything.  She puts up with me sewing on her almost every single day and hasn't let me down yet.  She's a huge part of my "sewing life" and career and without her I think I would still be back trying to fix wonky hems, unprofessional looking garments, get a darn piece of stretch to feed through my machine and more sewing nightmares I would love to forget...lol.

I'm not sure I would have kept going to tell you the truth.  I had pretty much hit my breaking point with sewing on my old machine at that point and was really assessing whether or not it was enjoyable for me.  A quilt would never have properly happened on the ol'devil.  So like a true friend, Poppy lifted me up, cheered me up, filled me with confidence and pride and set me on track to take on my dreams.  So when it comes to who/what my best friend is when it comes to sewing her name is Poppy the Pfaff Ambition 1.0 and I luv her to bits :) 

Want to read a full review on the Pfaff Ambition 1.0?  Watch for a full review post coming up very soon on the blog on how my first year with Poppy the Pfaff has been.  In the meantime if you're still looking for your dream machine here's a handy little checklist I made last year that you can download for when you do your dream sewing machine shopping:

                                                                                   Sewing Machine Checklist

                                                                               (this is for personal use only)

Thanks so much for having me be a part of your series Maryanne and Caroline!  You guys are so inspiring!  Follow along with the rest of the "my best friend" series on sew together.

So...who/what is your best sewing friend? An indispensable tool? A machine like me? A family member or friend? C'mon...join in! it's fun!