Your big PFAFF perfomance icon? Don’t leave home without it!

Features on the PFAFF performance icon make it an irresistible sewing day partner. In yesterday’s post I went through several of the little things that make a big impression on this machine. Today I’ll focus on the features that I think will convince you to take the PFAFF performance icon with you when sewing away from home.

Right from the start I was excited to see all of the features that made it easy to decide to take this machine with me to my guild sewing day. Of course, many of these features are great for day to day quilting at home too, but I hear from other quilters they don’t bring their big machines with them out to these special days. Why not?! This is the chance to take a whole day and quilt – why not bring the machine that makes this a fun, easy day!

The weight of the machine might make it seem unwieldy, but the full length handle makes it easier to carry. I carried it down a full flight of stairs and was able to get to my table with no problems.

The soft cover is easy to put over the PFAFF performance icon to keep dust off when not in use. It has openings to put it on even with the handle up and has back pockets for the machine power cord and the manual. And with a place for the cord to live, it’s less likely I’ll forget to pack it!

The cord retracts! This was the first little thing I noticed when unpacking the machine. A little squeal of joy left my lips when I realized it would be that much easier to pack the foot pedal for day outings – less cord to worry about fitting into a bag. A tidier way to travel for sure.

The PFAFF performance icon comes with two needle plates, including a straight stitch plate. The accessory tray has a built-in spot to store the second plate which makes it easy to store and take it out to use. I like that I don’t have to plan all my sewing ahead of time and know if I want to, I can easily switch the plate while I’m out and not worry about damaging – or losing – the other one.

The lighting on the PFAFF performance icon machine is impressive. It was one of the (many!) things the other quilters noticed. When you’re away from home and have less control over the sewing environment, it’s nice to know you’ll still have lots of light to sew accurately. I don’t need to take extra lighting or worry about less than ideal lighting. I can also adjust the brightness of the light on the machine in case I find myself in excessive sunlight (hasn’t happened yet!). One more way to make quilting away from home enjoyable.

I used this program before on another PFAFF machine, but something about the way this machine is set up made it really easy to use. I find this machine’s stitch selecting very intuitive and I didn’t need to look up how to use this program.

The Patchwork Program lets me literally program a set length of stitching I want the machine to repeat. Then I just press the Start/Stop button and the machine will stitch out the programmed stitch. I can do it over and over again. It saves time by doing all of the steps to make a row of stitching possible. I made lots of progress on my project for me that I only work on at my sewing day!

All of these features mean I can spend my time at sewing days chatting and admiring other quilter’s projects while still moving my project forward too. The PFAFF performance icon definitely earned its weight in gold 😉 I noticed even though I accomplished a lot I was less tired and able to sew more when I got home! How’s that for a great quilting day!

This is part 2 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 1: Little things make a big impression on the PFAFF performance icon

Go to part 3: PFAFF performance icon and its animal kingdom of decorative stitches