The timing is fortuitous for a number of reasons that I won't go into, except for one: Carla, one of my awesome quilt guild friends and I are headed to the Fredricksburg Quilt Expo this weekend to BUY NEW SEWING MACHINES.
Why leave the happy confines of the city and delve down I-95, well into dark side territory on a Saturday, you might ask? It's a legitimate question. Nearly all stores that sell sewing machines carry only one brand -- maybe two, if you're lucky. Which means that they want to sell you that brand. If you know exactly what you want, that's OK, and it's great if you need to take your machine to get serviced. But Carla and I aren't at that point of knowing exactly what brand we want, which would in the normal course, lead us to Pocono Sew & Vac, 3.5 hours away, but they will be at the Quilt Expo this weekend, along with many other vendors, giving us the perfect opportunity to test drive away and hopefully come away with awesome machines at great prices.
This leads to the question, though, of why I'm in the machine market in the first place. It's valid.
This is Fred. I haven't actually named him in regular life (though my new machine will get named, I'm sure), but for simplicity's sake I prefer "Fred" to "current sewing machine."
meet fred.
Fred is a Brother CS6000i. He comes with tons of built-in stitches and at $139.99 on Amazon is a steal. Fred's been an awesome first machine. Easy to use, nice features like a drop-in bobbin, adjustable stitch length, and snap on feet. But Fred is very light -- only 16.4 pounds -- which means that he's not cut out for bulky seams and heavy stitching...like quilting.
Fred's really been in action with me for about six months, which is way too soon to be having problems. But a couple of weeks ago, he stopped working. You couldn't even manually move the needle down. We took a trip to the sewing machine hospital in Cleveland Park, where they performed some timing belt surgery. Fred's feeling better, but it's clear he's not feeling cooperative with this quilting business.
The second major problem with Fred is the harp space -- the space between the right side of the machine (where all those lovely stitches are printed) and where the needle comes down. It's really, really small, making quilting extremely difficult.
I'll be happy to have Fred around while my new machine goes in for maintenance, so I'm not abandoning him. But between the technical difficulties and trouble maneuvering anything larger than a throw size, I'm ready to make the jump. It probably doesn't help that after you've tried someone's higher end machine, it's really tough to go back.
Hopefully on Sunday there will be a compliment post here!
I got a new machine about 2 years ago and LOVE it for quilt and basic project work. I got a JUKI TL-98Q. It is just a straight stitch machine (no fancy stitches, embroidery, etc.) and is all mechanical. It is metal construction and all mechanical (no computerized parts to mess up/die/become obsolete). It stitches SO fast and smooth and is a pleasure to work with. It has an extended I know that this machine will last forever. It is definitely pricy, but you can occasionally find them used/on-sale. If you are looking for something with more stitch options you might consider a vintage machine. My mom has a 60's era WHITE brand all-metal machine that is still going strong. It has most of the major stitches (zigzag, buttonhole, width and length adjustment), is almost indestructible, and has great tension/smooth use even after decades of service. I borrow it when I need a decorative stitch that my JUKI can't do. A well-serviced vintage machine is often very affordable.
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