Lesson 1: Bobbins are EVIL

I started with the Singer 2250 Tradition Basic.  Is it sad that I didn't even read the book to learn how to thread the machine?  There were numbers and arrows that made it seem pretty obvious.  I got the top thread all looped through here and around there and down here and through the needle and was set.  Then. Came. The. Bobbin.  Ugg, that thing is a beast!  Not only did my bobbin winder on top of my machine not want to evenly distribute the thread on the bobbin but loading in that area hidden under the plate was CHALLENGING!  I couldn't believe the number of steps to load that thing in there.  

Finally I got the bobbin in and the thread coming up through the underside of the plate and was ready to begin stitching.  I put in some fabric and put down the foot and pressed the pedal gently and the machine whirred along.  I was CRUISING!  I couldn't have been more thrilled I felt like I'd conquered my sewing machine and all that talk about how challenging it was was complete bull.  Then I turned the fabric over.  There was this nasty, hideous rats nest of fabric on the back side!  I was shocked!  That darn bobbin had betrayed me.  So I looked it up and found out that the tension was what I needed to fiddle with so I lowered it and lowered it and then increased it and increased it all to no avail.  No matter what tension setting I used I got a rat's nest.

My lame attempt at curtains

Please forgive the fact that I also went through a phase where I would not change the color of thread in my bobbin because it was just TOO MUCH WORK!

Some of my first projects were simple in concept (curtains, duvet covers, etc) but the scale made them very challenging.

Forgive the picture the quality of the picture matches that of the duvet cover

That bobbin was the cause of about 90% of my vulgar language use during 2010 and most of 2011.

I found certain things were worth the money to me, a better sewing machine was one of them (but not until late 2011) and pre-wound bobbins.