Introducing Bella Brooke

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Well, like I said in the last post, I was a good girl and didn’t buy fabric… but after we had our fun morning at the shop, I went and bought something else….

Yes, I present to you… Bella Brooke… my new (second hand) Bernina Virtuosa 155 🙂

Now I know what you are thinking – why does she NEED another sewing machine?

I know.. I have three Bernina’s back in Oz – Bernie who is a Virtuosa 153 QE, Baby B who is an Activa 240.. and then there is Fritz, an Aurora with embroidery module that was DD’s… and now is mine 🙂

Here… I have Nina, my lovely 440… so why Bella?

Well, she was meant to live at the shop so that I didn’t have to pack Nina up and drag her over there all the time… all I wanted was a basic Bernina to do piecing that could just stay in a corner at Nora’s and I could use her for class demos and my own sewing while I was there.

Nora has Janomes and of course I could and did use them, but when you start a quilt with a certain machine, it is always good to finish it with that same machine – or at least the same feet. So I put out feelers for an older Bernina to have as a spare…

Then we heard we were moving.

But I had already committed to buying Bella and really.. it is always good to have a spare machine, because if one needs to get serviced or fixed, then you still have another…

She is an old machine, as are all of the Bernina’s I have. Only two of my Bernina’s were bought new, the others are all second hand. And I love them. But you knew that 🙂

So this is Bella:

She is one model up from Bernie, but apparently can take an embroidery module.. now I don’t need that because Nina has one…

She is “old fashioned” in that she has these cards:

They get swapped out on the front so that you can work out the stitch numbers:

There’s a spot for them in the back of the manual:

You can tell it is old because the plastic pockets are breaking, but that doesn’t matter… She also came with the regular older style accessory case:

Just the standard feet included, plus the quarter inch foot… of course all the other feet I have will fit as well, so she fits right into the family…

My plan for when I move, is that I will set Nina and the embroidery module up on one table, and Bella on another, so that I can do embroidery and piece at the same time….

I did a quick test on some scrappy fabric and she runs beautifully…. Then I thought I’d be a very good girl and not start something new, but work on the binding for this butterfly quilt:

I must admit, I didn’t get very far.. I cut out the binding, then got distracted by this:

I am hoping to get the binding on tomorrow and then I have some mindless hand stitching for the evenings.. I need something mindless at the moment…

So, that is the new addition to my Bernina collection… anyone else have a Virtuosa 155?