Temperamental teenager with a blue rinse

This is Betsy. Betsy is a new member to our household, but it is already clear she comes with some issues.

Betsy landed at our house care of my mother, who works at a charity shop. Up until now, I had been using mum's cute little machine to keep my craftiness engine running. But when Betsy came in the shop, I decided to give her a go. The plan was to try her out, use her to play around with and finish a few projects and see how she went.

I have since decided that while Betsy may well be the age of your great aunt Myrtle (how is she by the way?) she has the temperament of a hormonal sixteen year old.

After cutting all my pieces for Mr Dilby out, I tried to sew the dart in the front of his head (under local anaesthetic of course - his not mine, that would be silly). Tried to, a number of times. 374 is a number, right?

Everytime I tried to sew on my scrap piece of fabric she purred like a dream and moved the material along in a sewingly good fashion.

Everytime I tried to sew Dilby's head, she did the equivalent of screaming 'I hate you!!!' and slamming her bedroom door, sewing up and down, up and down in the exact same bluddy spot.

ARGH.

Now, I know it sounds like Betsy is bearing the brunt of my frustrations, but I am well aware that user error may be playing a part in all this. Like perhaps all of it. But nevertheless, yesterday I gave up and am off this afternoon to reborrow mum's sewing machine (she is in NZ for the next three weeks) because at least I know how to work it.

I was trying to explain to my gorgeous best friend what happened, and being a more experienced sewer herself, she started asking me questions to try and help sort out what the problem was. Hard questions, which contained phrases such as 'size needle' and 'tension'. At least she was spot on about the tension part, on both my and Betsy's behalf.

So my plan is to pilfer the good machine for the next few weeks, and then get my Mum down to have a look once she is back on home soil. Part of me hopes it is salvagable but part of me feels unless things change soon, Betsy and I may be parting ways in the near future.

A few weeks ago the HTC did offer for us to buy me a new machine (it's ok, I didn't let my mouth hang open for too long) but we will see.