The Sewing Room

xxvickixx

I'm on the verge of a breakdown trying to choose! It's the most stressful descision I think I've ever had to make.
I think if I can get the Brother for £60 at T J huges then it'll cost me £10 in petrol getting there and the time and potential return issue it might be better to pay £80 in Argos, get the £5 gift voucher (for spending £50 which starts tomorrow) plus Quidco maybe? Then if I do need to return it's less than a mile away rather than 20.
I'm waiting to see what my Mum says as she is having a look this evening for me. She's of the "you need to spend a lot of money on a decent one" school of thought though so I'm unlikely to get a helpful answer!
I just wish I'd bought myself one when I had a decent job and a large disposable income!

fluffmagnet

I bought my first sewing machine at the weekend - I was looking for a reconditioned one so I could get better 'bang for my buck' but after advertising on freecycle & calling the local sewing machine dealers/repair/service shops seems these are few & far between. Anyway, one last chance, looked online and saw a janome 2200 for sale at £99 about 40mins drive away. I jumped at the chance.
I'm so pleased with it! I jumped straight in and made a bag - It looks like its my first attempt at sewing, but I'm proud of it
Now I'm going to practice practice practice to get the great finishes I see here

xx

mollymunchkin

xxvickixx wrote: »

I'm on the verge of a breakdown trying to choose! It's the most stressful descision I think I've ever had to make.
I think if I can get the Brother for £60 at T J huges then it'll cost me £10 in petrol getting there and the time and potential return issue it might be better to pay £80 in Argos, get the £5 gift voucher (for spending £50 which starts tomorrow) plus Quidco maybe? Then if I do need to return it's less than a mile away rather than 20.
I'm waiting to see what my Mum says as she is having a look this evening for me. She's of the "you need to spend a lot of money on a decent one" school of thought though so I'm unlikely to get a helpful answer!
I just wish I'd bought myself one when I had a decent job and a large disposable income!

Just my 2p worth...

I bought a Toyota machine some years ago and was quite happy with it and made roman blinds, cushions, patch cot quilts, curtains, etc with no problems. Then I bought a second hand Viking Husqvarna on Ebay for about £20 and the difference is quite amazing. It is definitely less 'clonky', sounds much smoother and the foot pedal has so much more sensitivity. With the basic model you put your foot on the pedal and it races away, the better model you can control the speed much better. I'm no expert and don't have much experience of sewing machines at all but I'd steer clear of the cheaper models. I bought the seond one because I wanted to do some freemotion sewing where the feed dogs are dropped and the basic model didn't do this.

Good luck with your choice and have fun testing out whatever you get.

no.1swimmum

I would love a new machine, I have 2 at the moment that have been extremely well used but are 27 and 18 years old respectively. Both are Brother machines and I was lucky at the time of purchase worked for a large department store and used my discount - oh how I miss that.

So I have been looking around at some different machines and have noticed the following basic machines which I thought weren't bad value

John lewis have an own brand one for 49.50 and has 10 different stitches
http://www.johnlewis.com/230657779/Product.aspx
and a janome one that is £99 http://www.johnlewis.com/230472538/Product.aspx

and this singer one from Tesco direct is good value
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-3277.aspx

still not found one that its quite what I want in my price range so will keep looking as although mine aren't brilliant I can at least use the ones we have at work for the students, we have just ordered 40 new Janome machines, so looking forward to trying them out.

I have been busy sewing during the easter hols and will try to post some pics, I made 2 tops, a dress, a bag, numerous pass port covers for gifts (although I am having trouble finding a fabric to use for men - saw a great one online that had suitcases on but was quite expensive and the small amount that I needed made the postage expensive) a bottle holder for my trip to florida oh and just finished another top and a drawstring bag.

pws52

I hope that someone can help....

I have returned to machine sewing after a bit of a break to make clothes and use up my stash of fabric.

However, I keep getting back ache. I used to have my machine on a dressing table in a spare bedroom ...which was fine years ago but not now! I use an office chair.
I have tried using the machine on the dining table which is little higher and thought that I had solved the problem but after a while my back ached.
I have changed the chair too, and used a cushion.

I am so frustrated as I have caught the bug again which would be great news if it wasn't for the ache.

Can anyone suggest solutions or do I have to mothball my machine?

zombiecazz

cuddles123 wrote: »

Is that the Lervia?

I have that and it's really not too bad. Doesn't like sewing anything thick though.

Yep that's the one.
I've done 3 layers on it. 2 thin material and one towel. But I'm not a quilter, so it's never really been an issue.

Tete_en_l'Air

PWS52 - I was going to suggest one of these computer stool things, but you wouldn't be able to operate the pedal - d'oh! Can't help otherwise I'm afraid

JailhouseBabe

I spotted this machine in Dunelm yesterday for £45 and wondered if it might be suitable for a complete novice? It has 30 stitches as opposed to 10 on the John Lewis one.
I'd be looking to use it mostly for small craft projects, bags and toys, but hope to have a go at dressmaking in the future.
It has a one year guarantee so I assume I'd be okay if anything went wrong with it.

rufusdog52

xxvickixx wrote: »

I'm on the verge of a breakdown trying to choose! It's the most stressful descision I think I've ever had to make.
I think if I can get the Brother for £60 at T J huges then it'll cost me £10 in petrol getting there and the time and potential return issue it might be better to pay £80 in Argos, get the £5 gift voucher (for spending £50 which starts tomorrow) plus Quidco maybe? Then if I do need to return it's less than a mile away rather than 20.
I'm waiting to see what my Mum says as she is having a look this evening for me. She's of the "you need to spend a lot of money on a decent one" school of thought though so I'm unlikely to get a helpful answer!
I just wish I'd bought myself one when I had a decent job and a large disposable income!

I bought a Brother machine from Argos 3 years back and was never happy with it as the tension used to keep going wrong and it wouldnt let me change it. I should have taken it back to Argos but kept leaving it as I thought it might be me threading it up wrong or something. Then at beginning of year it was getting worse and worse so took it to a repairers who fixed it, cost me £60 and it worked for about 2 weeks and it went again. Took it back again, fixed it for free and it worked for a week then back to menders. This time he asked me if I had bought it from Argos. I said yes and he said they were not very well built, said the insides were all fixed inside the plastic casing so it is near to impossible to get in there to fix trhings properly. With a good machine you can take the casing right off and get to the parts.

I gave up on it and have got myself a Singer now which is a dream to use.

Just be careful of buying the cheaper models like others have said. Mind you saying that my sister has a cheaper Brother and has had no problems with it but then she only uses it occaisionally.

rufusdog52

pws52 wrote: »

I hope that someone can help....

I have returned to machine sewing after a bit of a break to make clothes and use up my stash of fabric.

However, I keep getting back ache. I used to have my machine on a dressing table in a spare bedroom ...which was fine years ago but not now! I use an office chair.
I have tried using the machine on the dining table which is little higher and thought that I had solved the problem but after a while my back ached.
I have changed the chair too, and used a cushion.

I am so frustrated as I have caught the bug again which would be great news if it wasn't for the ache.

Can anyone suggest solutions or do I have to mothball my machine?

Try moving the foot pedal a bit further back and sit more comfortably. I use an office chair with my sewing machine which is on a home made built in desk. I can raise the chair to what height I want but find if my back is starting to ache I move the pedal away from me a bit and sit less stooped over the machine and it is fine. If you are getting too near it and stooping it might be because you cant see the fabric properly may be? I was doing this as well but have some reading glasses now by my machine so I can see if I sit back a bit.