Buying a Sewing Machine

nuttywoman

kiwichick wrote:

I've just checked out the tesco one which looks great but is now out of stock. A quick search on the net found this;

http://www.sewingmachinediscount.co.uk/home/productzoom.asp?pid=1759

which looks great and is on sale at the mo for £60 normally £199.99 and is garanteed for 5 years!!!!

Got my sewing machine from those and would recommend them.Ordered on a sunday came on tues, that was last dec.
val

soba

Why not try freecycle? That's where I got mine. It's a good one too. The lady I had mine off had just won one in a competition, so needed to get rid of her old one.

kiwichick

lynsayjane wrote:

i wouldnt bother too much about fancy things on a sewing machine. i do dressmaking on a regular basis, my machine is by a comapny called new home and it's as old as i am (24 an a bit!).

LOL - reminds me of my mum, she trained as a tailor/seamstress and uses a Janome, its a sewing machine on one side and and overlocker on the other. Its older than me and I'm 26! She swears by it.

laughing_cow

I'm looking to buy a sewing machine too and I'm finding it quite confusing. One question I have: I want to be able to sew jersey fabric but I have been told that many of the cheaper machines will not do this well. There doesn't seem to be any mention of this in the descriptions on websites - what should I be looking for to know that the machine is capable of this?

tootles_2

kiwichick wrote:

LOL - reminds me of my mum, she trained as a tailor/seamstress and uses a Janome, its a sewing machine on one side and and overlocker on the other. Its older than me and I'm 26! She swears by it.

That machine was quite an inovation when it came out, it does an overlock at the back...... it is on a swivel and was a very popular seller especially with our asian friends...by the way New Home is Janome, its the same company.....they changed their name some years ago now. The machines are very reliable and not expensive for a good basic model, if you have read some of my previous posts you will know I have had several of them. I worked for Janome for a number of years as a demonstrator.

kiwichick

Hiya Tootles,

Mum loves that machine. She will never replace it, they are so good at repairing anything. I dont think shes had too much go wrong with it, save for having to change a couple of light bulbs! Shes even still got the original foot pedal!

tootles_2

Janome are generally very good and reliable, like anyone they do have the occasional 'rogue' but are very good at putting things right when they go wrong.........I once had to send a machine back to them because the needle was hitting the needle plate..... to my horror when the mechanic phoned he told me I had put the needle in [EMAIL="wrong....@how"]wrong....'how[/EMAIL] long did you work for us????' he asked I almost died of shame, he just laughed....had to put it down to a senior moment..................

nic82

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all your advice.

In the end, I've gone for http://www.sewingmachinediscount.co.uk/home/productzoom.asp?pid=1704.

Although it says it's £285 on the site, if you buy this one http://www.sewingmachinediscount.co.uk/home/productzoom.asp?pid=1234 (£89), they automatically upgrade it to the more expensive one!

The £89 includes P+P too, so hopefully it will be as good a deal as it sounds!

Special thanks to Kiwichick, as I wouldn't have heard of this website without her. It was also great to hear that nuttywoman has already ordered from them.

I ordered it yesterday afternoon, so am hoping it might be here by tomorrow.

**purpleprincess**

Are sewing machines easy to use (thread etc)? I haven't used one in about 8+ years!! And they were always threaded for us!!

tawnyowls

laughing_cow wrote:

I'm looking to buy a sewing machine too and I'm finding it quite confusing. One question I have: I want to be able to sew jersey fabric but I have been told that many of the cheaper machines will not do this well. There doesn't seem to be any mention of this in the descriptions on websites - what should I be looking for to know that the machine is capable of this?

It's not the machine - it's the needle. You need a ballpoint needle to sew jersey. Apart from that, all you need is a machine with adjustable tension - even the cheapest will have that.