It’s time for the unboxing. I ordered the Sparrow 20 from Leah Day’s web site last week and it arrived more quickly than I expected. It has been sitting in my living room for a few days patiently waiting to be unboxed. I took photos of all the sides of the box, but decided it would be overkill to display them, so on to the good stuff inside without delay.

Here is my lovely Sparrow with her sewing foot and power cord.

Notice that she comes with evidence of her functionality. Someone has taken the time to see to it that this Sparrow can fly.

Some additional viewpoints…

In addition to purchasing the Sparrow I took advantage of the sale on Leah Day’s site to purchase a set of quilting feet. TWO walking feet are included, one open and one closed.

The Sparrow come with a dust cover.

After purchasing the Sparrow I searched Amazon for a case so I could carry her to retreats. My primary reason for buying the Sparrow was to be able to take her by train when I travel to my yearly retreat in Lancaster. I attend this yearly retreat with a group of women who call themselves the Lambertville ladies because we met in Lambertville in 2015 at the first, and so far only, Slow Stitching Movement retreat. It took us two years to get back together again, but it looks like we are going to keep this tradition going. We’ve spent two years so far in Lancaster.

Here is the case I found on Amazon.

Here is a view that better shows the interior.

I took my Sparrow into the house and weighed her. She is 13.4 pounds by herself. I’d been hoping for 12, but that’s not bad. She is not a big machine, but I think she is more than three quarters size, so her weight is good.

Let’s see her with her dust cover.

She’s getting ready to hit the road.

There is room to spare for fabric to provide padding. The case is not padded, and quite flexible.

The quilting feet fit easily in the front pocket.

She’s all zipped up and ready to to carry with the top handle, or you can sling her over your shoulder. I tried caring her on the left with the strap on my left shoulder, but I found it more comfortable to carry her on the left with the strap on my right shoulder with the strap crossing over my body. She sat nicely against my hip.

This is a lightweight case. It is soft without any real padding, so it isn’t at all suitable for stashing in an overhead bin, but this case will be fine for placing at my feet on the train.

Almost forgot, there is a little chart that you can pull out to see the stitches available to you.

I’m really excited about this machine. I thought a lot about getting a 3/4 size Janome. I also thought about upgrading the Sparrow to a higher model. But it finally came down to having some faith that Leah Day thinks that this machine is good enough. It can do everything she thinks I need it to do, and at $279.00 on sale, the price was right.

It feels good to have my mind made up, and to have a travel machine purchased. If I ever get serious about flying with her I can look at hard shell cases. I’m going to put this girl through her paces and report back in a month or two.