New Tool: Sewing Machine

I received a brand new toy over a month ago: a brand new Lil' Sew & Sew. My godsister got it for me as a Birthday/Graduation gift. I absolutely love it! It is perfect in size and level of difficult in use. The machine has eight different types of stitch patterns which was why I passed up the one pattern stitch one from Michaels. But the story behind this little thing was a 'pain in my behind'.

We originally went to TARGET and found a Singer QuikFix pictured below. I loved the light blue knobs and it was the perfect size. But when I returned home with this new gift, I checked online and it had horrendous reviews. It bugged me so much I called my Godsister to have her return it and I found a better reviewed and cheaper one on Amazon.

They literally look exactly the same except for the color. Lil' Sew & Sew is entirely white; in the long run, it  probably does not matter. Poor reviews were not too different from the Singer QuikFix, but it sure did have a lot more better reviews.

Lil' Sew & Sew Product Review:
Color wise it is extremely boring; the entire thing is white. I thought the Singer Quikfix was prettier with the light blue knobs. The foot pedal seems to be very lite, almost like a toy. I have chosen not to use it, but once I have the hang of sewing, the pedal will be useful. Like many of the reviews, the instructions that came with the machine are not clear. Videos online will help with the threading if you ever need to redo what they already have done. The eight different stitch settings are pretty cool. They do work as well as long as you keep pushing the paper through. I strictly use it for my scrapbooking pages. I have not tried it on clothes or fabric. Other reviews I have read said that their issues tend to happen when they try to sew thick pieces of fabric. So it will not be used for that purpose because from other reviews it seems to break quicker. I have already gotten it jammed once and it nearly freaked me out. Thank goodness I fiddled around with it and discovered I had pieces of thread lodged underneath the platform. Once I removed that, it worked fine once again. The spool sizes are much smaller than the norm, so you will  need to buy more spool for other colors. But it comes with three - in the colors of black and white.

None of my straight lines look straight, but most of the time you cannot tell or will not take too much time to notice. I did try with my first attempt on a project to draw the line. It was slightly helpful as a beginner. After that run, I chose to eyeball it and hope for the best. I have already posted this layout in Strip Papers entry.

Can you tell it was my first attempt?