Crafty MN-ers, please tell me about your sewing machines *begs*

[TheWombat]

I would love to know what your machine is like and how you rate it. :)

I love to knit and would love to back a couple of my knitted blankets with fleece or brushed cotton, so I am thinking about getting a sewing machine for my Christmas present. I can PM you with a link to my blog if you'd like to see the blankets I mean. In my dreams I'd also use it for other simple projects.

However, I'm a sewing novice so not quite sure what to look for, and the John Lewis site is confusing me also I get distracted by the shoes. Is your machine easy to use, and can it cope with stretchy and/or thickish fabric? If you have any other thoughts and/or recommendations I'd be so grateful.

Thank you

I have Brother industrials but i would probably go for a Bernina if i bought a domestic.

Janome is a good make also and my Janome that i bought 20 years ago still works fine.

John Lewis do some good Janomes, depends on your budget.

You could also buy a domestic overlocker if you were going to put together a lot of stretch fabric. Most sewing machines should have a stretch stitch too.

Thank you! My budget would be £200 max. I am tempted by the Janomes, they seem solidly built. But I'm such a novice, it's hard to translate the specifications of all the different machines. Good to know some domestic machines can cope with stretchy fabric.

I haven't heard of Bernina and hadn't thought of an overlocker, so will investigate those options too.
Thank you again!

Bernina are fab, we have one but they are expensive!! bought ours from some inheritance money and DD uses it nearly every day as she is doing textiles A level. Talking about £500ish

Try Ebay, secondhand. It's a buyers market at the moment. The stretch stitches on sewing machines can be a bit slow if you are sewing a lot of fabric, which is why i suggested the domestic overlocker.

It is just an overlocker though, so think about what you want to do.

With your budget i'd go for a Janome if i wanted sewing machine but once you get the nice lady at John Lewis to give you a demo. Go and buy it cheaper elswhere ;). It will probably be cheaper online (try Amazon). Some sewing machines have a slow and a fast speed setting.

I have a Janome and I love it. TBF it was a bit expensive, but all I ever use it for is straight stitching and quilting (it's a Quilter's Companion one). Great machine, never had any problems with it in 10 years, I highly recommend them.

I'm another advocate for Bernina, fantastic machines, but expensive so out of budget for you & as a novice, I think probably unnecessary.

I'm lucky enough to have a few machines including industrial, but its my trade, so I need them for different things, so I won't list them as its probably irrelevant to what you need.

With that budget I would suggest you get 2, a cheap old reconditioned workhorse of a sewing machine, such as a heavy old Jones ( my favourite of my machines) and a basic 4 thread overlocker to use with jerseys and knits I have 2, one of which is a Janone which though cheap, is actually a good little machine

HTH

PS I got my Janome overlocker from a specialist in dependent sewing machine supplier & bartered them down an the price you will also find reconditioned old machines in the same type of shops, depending on where you are, you could pick up a really good one, that has been serviced & has a gar auntie for as little as £50 - getting both in the same shop will up your bargaining power too

Jeez, my iPad is taking the pee with all the changes, gar auntie FFS

I have a lovely Pfaff 1475 CD which I bought when I first started work around 20 years ago. (I paid it up in monthly installments.) I bought a Babylock overlocker a few years later but always had terrible tension problems with it, so I replaced it with a Pfaff overlocker a few years ago. I haven't used that very much yet. It also does a coverstitch which I had been wanting for A-G-E-S.

I really have to get back into sewing - I have been doing more knitting and crocheting recently. I have a bolt of curtain material sitting in the corner of the spare room!

I'm afraid I don't know much about the current makes and models of machines. When I was looking, the best ones were the higher-end Pfaff, Bernina, Elna and Husqvarna/Viking. But at that point the cheaper models were being made in the Far East and the high-end ones in Europe. I'm sure everything has changed now...

Janome all the way here. I have an expensive model, MC4900QC bought about 2 years ago and stung me DH £700. But it is bloody marvellous.

I also have a 34 year old New Home (janome these days) which is my back up machine and a Janome 300e embroidery machine.

I had a shot of my mums brother machine and detested every single bouncy, squint, thread knotting moment. And thus, swore it was to be Janome forever more.

Which one would you like to know about? :o

I have a 40-year old Bernina Minimatic 807 as my day to day machine, it's very good and practically indestructable. I paid about £250 for it in a local sewing machine shop about 7 years ago.

I also have a Brother SE400 combined embroidery and sewing machine, which I imported from the states via amazon.com, for around £300. It's good, but I use it for embroidery rather than sewing.

And I have an overlocker, which came from www.sewingmachines.co.uk - it's a SMD (own) brand, but rebadged Frister & Rossman. It's well worth looking at SMD branded machines through that site, they're very good value and normally are rebadged Fristers, Janomes, etc. Plus you get next day delivery and normally a big pack of thread/scissors etc to go with it.

THANK YOU!! @ purplefrog - I remembered seeing a domestic overlocker in John Lewis a few years back that also did cover stitch, but when I tried to buy one about a year later, I couldn't remember the brand & no one I spoke with seemed have a clue that it ever existed at all - I tried everywhere & gave up in the end thinking I had imagined it after all - I now no I didn't & the make too :)

Ooh, thank you so much everyone for all the replies. It definitely seems like Janome is the way to go. I would love to have your budgets! But because I'm a beginner and a bit stretched at Christmas I feel like a bigger budget would be wasted on me.

I have just spied an independent sewing mating retailer / repairer in my local city so I will make a trip there tomorrow I think - from your advice it seems like that might be the best place to start.

There are some great bargains from that website RueDeWakening - very tempting! Could make my rather small budget go a bit further I think :)

I hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew - the last time I attempted machine-sewing was at school, when I made a bag for my mum. I wrapped it up and gave it to her for Christmas, and she said 'ooh, a lovely pair of knickers, how nice darling' !

Don't sell yourself short though thewombat.......I made the mistake of buying too simple a machine, which meant that as my skills grew I DH had to buy me one with more bells and whistles

Try to think about what you can sew right now and what you'd like to sew in 3 years time.

That is a very good point EddieVeddersfoxymop :) I think you've influenced my preference now.

I visited my local sewing machine shop who were a mine of information and even let me have a go (brave people) on their machines. The two I liked best were these:

Janome - this one is £300, but comes with all the quilting stuff (walking foot, extension table) that I'll need to line my blankets properly.
or...
Brother - cheaper at £220-ish, but I would have to buy the walking foot separately. Was nice to use in the shop but does seem to be more of a 'beginner's machine'.

I am leaning towards the Janome, but it is above my price range (eek)...If anyone has any thoughts I'd love your opinions! What do you think is better value? I have to say I haven't seen them cheaper anywhere online, than in my local shop so think I might well buy from them and support them. :)

They are both good machines with great reviews and simple to set up and use. Personally I would go with the Janome because it has more options and you can grow into it's functions as your sewing develops. And at only 80 pounds more you get a lot more features. I tested quite a few and found the Janomes to be much quieter than the Brothers.

I have a Janome Newhome, bought about 6 years ago from independent shop in town. It's brilliant! I've made lots of house stuff with it - curtains, bean bags, toys, kids clothes etc Has a good range of stitches and cost about £100 so not a big layout. I also have a hand powered Jones which is brilliant for hemming heavier fabrics like denim.

I used to have a Brother which I loved, when it fell off the ironing board wore out I bought a Toyota Jeans (because I seem to be forever taking up jeans for the children) whilst its true it sews denim no problem its shite in comparison as it has no tension control. Next one I buy "tension control" will be on my tick list.

Aha, tension control. Am a beginner sewer but I do knit so I can see why it would be important! That is useful to know, I will check that out. Thank you.

Thank you also to Kevin and Tidy - seems like Janome is recommended on here. I will have to do some selling on Ebay or something to make up the difference...

I will confirm too, much as I loved it, the Brother was hideously noisy, new one is quieter but that doesnt make up for the drawback of no tension, or the fact that I should have known it was a necessity!!

Hey Wombat, I like the look of that Janome - was it quiet? I have a basic and noisy Singer and am hoping to upgrade soon.

I second/third Janome (quilters' companion one here too). It can cope with quite thick materials such as leather and is very easy to use and very reliable.

Bernina are great but parts are extortionately expensive.

A sewing machine without tension control - that rules out so many sewing goodies, such as shearing & gauging - who on earth though making a machine without was a good idea.

I'd still recommend looking at an older a re-con too, it will save you money, will do all you need & more & will last

Well in retrospect the tension control should have been a deal breaker but it had great reviews and Toyota have apparently been making sewing machines for decades (who knew!)

I havent managed to do a single thing on it yet which has been completely satisfactory.