Playing with a new toy

Yesterday I succumbed to temptation and bought a new sewing machine.  My old one (which I had inherited) always drove me mental trying to get to work and after trying to use it on the weekend and finding I could not even sew a straight line, I cracked.

My new toy is a Brother NS50 for those interested- lots of nice features I've never had on a machine before and a large number of different stitches.  Now the stitches were not originally on my shopping list, but after eventually deciding on this machine for other reasons, I'm not going to complain about it.

So I sat down to use it yesterday.  I'm making a bag organiser- partly because I've a big handbag that is essentially a giant tote bag with no internal pockets, and partly because I'm not terribly experienced in sewing, so if the results are less than professional, no one but me will ever see it!  I'm using McCall's pattern M4851 which is a pattern for two virtually identical tote bags and an organiser pocket- we'll see if I decide to make a tote bag sometime down the track.

Step one is to create two large flat pieces to form the sides of the largest pocket.  The pattern says to use straight stitching vertically down the sides to join the two pieces of fabric (and interfacing inside to stiffen the side).  But since the pattern referred to this as 'decorative stitching' and since I had just unboxed my nice new toy, my first thought was 'Oooh!  Excuse to use fancy stitches to test machine!'  And my second thought (no doubt assisted by the fact I had 'The Princess Bride' on while I worked, was 'Oooh!  My machine has letters.  I could put quotes on the sides as well!

So here are the two sides with decorative stitching.  Virtual geeky cookie to anyone who can identify all the geek references.  I'll post more as the work progresses.