This past weekend, I took a leap of faith and financed a
Babylock Triumph serger. As far as I
know this is the most expensive serger on the market, with the MSRP at
$7999. I don’t know about y’all, but
that is one expensive machine.
My educational background is in clothing and textiles from
Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho), Oregon State University, and BYU-Provo. As far as I know, neither BYU schools offer a
degree in clothing and textiles any longer. (They do offer sewing
construction/pattern design/textiles as part of Family and Consumer Science
though.) Clothing and textiles is the
apparel design major at Oregon State, College of Business. I’m also self educated in heirloom sewing,
doll making, and hand embroidery. I have
spent the last 10 years researching convertible/multipurpose clothing and that’s
where my passion lies.
Last May, I left my job of almost 7 years. I had decided to
go back to college after a hiatus of more than 25 years. School does take a considerable amount of
time, but I still needed something else to occupy my time (my children are
basically grown and out of the home). I have
wanted to start a business - clothing business - for several years but haven’t
had the time.
In June, I realized I would probably need a new serger if I wanted to start any one of my business ventures. My current serger is at least 22 years old
and in bad shape. I chose to look into
Babylock machines because I had used one about 21 years ago and liked the jet
air threading. Also, I was looking for a
machine that did cover/chain stitch. I
visited a Babylock dealer and was floored by the cost of the Babylock Ovation
at $3499. Ouch! I did a little more research and thought I
might want the Babylock Diane, but couldn’t find one locally. I was telling a friend about my serger search
and she offered to let me have her Babylock Imagine as she had had it for 10
years and hadn’t used it. I took her up
on her offer and realized I needed to learn how to use a serger all over
again. I found a class to be taught in Rome,
GA at The Stitchery. This was a Sue
Green-Baker event. I wanted to serge on
a Babylock Ovation to see if it really did what I wanted it to do. As the event drew closer, I received a pre-survey
from The Stitchery and the Babylock Triumph was mentioned. I didn’t even know what that was! So, I googled it. Come to find out, it’s the newest serger on
the Babylock market. I wasn’t interested
in it. I wanted that Ovation.
The day of class arrived and I traveled up to Rome, GA from
my home in Dallas, GA. Sitting at my
spot was the new Babylock Triumph. I had
received an email from The Stitchery prior to arrival that stated we could purchase
the machine at an awesome price with great add ons – a thread kit, the Love of
Knowledge membership, a trolley and the 29 foot and attachment kit. I still wasn’t interested and told my husband
so. The new upgrades just didn't seem necessary to me. I don’t have a
problem threading needles (see RevolutionAirTM threading). I like
the needle threader on the Imagine which was also on the Ovation. The higher pressure foot height (6mm), the
easier subsidiary looper for 2 thread conversion, and the ability to chain off would be nice, but I was okay with the Ovation’s specs.
Our instructor, Patsy, began walking us through the
Triumph. She mentioned the above
upgrades and I’m like “Whatever!”. Then
she mentioned the newest safety feature - if the pressure foot is up the floor
pedal will not engage. That’s when I was
sold on the machine. I have littles in
my home a lot and I’m looking forward to grandbabies. When I was raising my kids, I had my machines
out in the open all the time. I had one
or two incidents where one of the kids landed on the foot pedal and the machine
whirred away. Those were scary moments. With this machine, I hope to not have to worry about those scary moments.
This machine was released in September. It’s so new that the Sue Green-Baker team had
updated the class materials, but hadn’t released them yet. (We’ll be getting the updates in an
email). Patsy did know the differences
between the machines and showed how to operate them. We spent 3 days learning how to serge and how
to use these machines. Of course, I
needed to talk to my husband about this.
Well, we had a passing in the night type of interaction this weekend due
to the many activities we had. So, I
texted him Saturday and said I’m getting it.
He said okay (sorta). So, I left
the event with a new serger and the thread kit.
The other add-ons will come shortly.
Do I like the machine? I do. I better. I did this past weekend.
What do you think of this machine? Would you get it? Why or why not?
No comments:
Post a Comment