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After recently decorating the spare room and getting all giddy about making some bunting my wife has decided she'd like a sewing machine for Christmas.
Can anyone recommend me one, plus any sort of basic starter stuff that she'll need for around £150
Thanks
bernina, 2nd hand, swiss made - the best
I got the wife a £200 one from John Lewis, but I have no idea if it is any good.
It's name is Jerome or something (might be Jenome).
She's made some stuff with it and hasn't sewn her hand to anything yet so seems to be going well.
Have a look on the internet for a 'guide to buying a sewing machine".
find your local sewing shop. They'll likely have very good second hand machines in there and will give you decent advice about what to get as a starter kit.
Miss njee20 got one a couple of years ago - I was leaning toward Singer as a brand I'd heard of, they got bad reviews, and it turns out someone bought the rights to the name, but they're nothing to do with the company of yesteryear, I'd probably avoid!
She ended up with a Brother on the advice of a friend who runs sewing-classes and makes stuff, been faultless.
Find out what the local schools use for teaching on. They are usually tough as ye ole bootes. That or find a local shop who can provide a good service (and possibly lessons) and see what they recommend for starting. I've suffered bad lightweight machines and enjoyed good heavyweights.
Be warned. You'll want to start making stuff yourself and it is a slippery slope! Don't EVER look at [url= http://www.profabrics.co.uk/ ]http://www.profabrics.co.uk/[/url] and don't EVER buy a mixed bag of their offcuts to play about with. You'll be making oodles of useful little bags, repairing stuff and eventually get caught at the sewing machine when she has been out for the night 😳
We (I've done more sewing than my wife!) brought a [url= http://www.johnlewis.com/janome-7025-sewing-machine/p231340608 ]Janome one from John Lewis[/url] a couple of months back. Good value and has done a good job so far. Have a look on ebay? I don't think you'd be able to get a new machine that'd last and is nice to use for £150.
After doing metres and metres of bunting the wife is going crazy making christmas stockings at the moment!
Cheers,
Jamie
Haha! I've still got over a metre of Cordura waiting to be used for something!Don't EVER look at http://www.profabrics.co.uk/
Cheers,
Jamie
find your local sewing shop.
Undoubtably the best advice. Ideally the things need the occasional service so a place to do that is good.
Mrs Ratadog collects sewing machines the way I collect bicycles and another one is likely to arrive soon if I do go ahead and add a Singular to the stable for Xmas. Bernina used to be the Rolls Royce of sewing machines and still are if you find the right one. We had one of the value models - except they didn't call them that - which did have issues and I think they have now gone back to the premium end of the market.
Jenome is more correctly Janome and the biggest manufacturer of sewing machines in the world. Mrs R has 2 of their professional machines and they have been excellent. They produce machines to cater to all levels of expertise. Brother and Toyota ( a company that subsequently went into the car business in a small way ) also produce machines from beginner upwards and have a good rep.
Extra money buys you increased durability, the ability to work heavier weight materials and increased numbers of stitch patterns. At some stage well above your price band electronics kicks in and you then get fancy embroidery etc. etc.
Having been through this exact process a month or so ago, I can strongly recommend [url= http://www.sewingmachines.co.uk/ ]SMD[/url] Russel's very happy to talk through the machines and they even have their own range built for them by Jenome.
Just my 2ps worth but I was impressed. v. fast free delivery too..
my wife is a huge sewer, she bought this and rates it hugely...
https://sewingworld.co.uk/Singer_160_Limited_Edition_Sewing_Machine.html
I love my Elna, but suspect you won't get one for £150, so, sorry, I'm not a lot of help!
Still over budget but not as far as some
I have an earlier version of this
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4602387.htm
it was recommended as best machine for beginners in Which? at the time and it's been faultless for me.
Personally I think that money spent on lessons would be better put towards a machine. There are so many simple tutorials and projects on the web these days.
In the house we still have a hand cranked Singer from the 1930's, lovely sound to it. A Riccar from the 90's works nicely enough, lots of features for it's time. The new Brothers look to be superb, some of the top end ones are mind blowing what they can do.
Listen, it a has to be a Husky. They make rifles, moto X bikes & loads of other blokey stuff, so their sewing machines must be awesome!!
They are quite fragile, at least I have broken our last two when trying to repair various pieces of outdoor and cycling kit.
Trying to sew nylon webbing and cordura kills lesser machines easily.
There are so many that do a good job, but whichever one you go for make sure you get the right needles for the fabric you are working with.
They really do make a massive difference especially when sewing heavier weight fabrics, jerseys, silks etc.
As well as the machine and needles I would say a cutting wheel and board as well as a good quality pair of scissors. They are a few rules in my house the kids know never to break - one of those is 'do not use mums dressmaking scissors for anything but fabric'.
Thinking of the bear minimum items I would want from the start a seam ripper would also be in there - its a little blade for unpicking seams, without damaging the fabric, brilliant for alterations or undoing mistakes
Also if she is thinking of dressmaking as well as soft furnishings try and pick her up a Burda magazine from a large whsmith. They do a simple 'easy' version a couple of times a year. Basically its a magazine that includes patterns for all the garments featured in it.
She may not fancy the clothes but it does give details of loads of fabric suppliers etc - this will give you an idea of their stuff and also of how much cheaper it is to get a magazine full of patterns than buying them individually!
[url= http://www.burdastyle.com/ ]burda style magazine[/url]
The magazines are around £5 depending from smiths
I have a frister and rossman cub6. It the dangly bits
Randomly, I just bought one last night for my missus! On advice from a local shop I ended up doubling my budget from 150 to 300 as even I could see there were a lot more features.
Jenome J3-24, seemed the best of the basic models but was advised its not very upgradable with stuff like running heads etc (a thing that pulls the top and bottom of the material through fir doing several thick layers like curtains or quilting)
jenome 525s like the j3 but with more scope to upgrade, still no quilting table though. Also top loads the bobbin which means its visible and wont jam unlike a front loading machine.
jenome 601xl, £300 but comes with a quilting table and £100+ of different heads for doing different tasks. And its computerised so the stitching lookd far more neat and accurate. Other stuff like needle up/down stop, one touch button holes. Ive not used one since school and even I could make something quite neat looking with it. My first attempt with the mechanical machines looked like a blind monkey with arthritic fingers did it by comparison.
£300 is a lot of money but it seems like with bikes they get hugely better just above the entry level models.
Well......this has all got a lot more involved than I imagined 😐
Firstly, thanks for all the replies, it's been really helpful.
I think the first think I've realized is that its very easy (like with bike stuff) to keep looking at that model which is just 'the next one up' and before you know it your original budget has doubled!
After googling, it turns out we have quite a few fabric / sewing ;/ haberdashery shops close by but none of the ones that sell actual machines are.
It seems that Janome / Brother / SMD seem to be highly recommended at the price point I was looking at.
We have a strict £250 limit for Christmas/Birthday presents so I could increase my budget but not too much as she always loves a few stocking filler presents.
For the moment I think that she just wants to make simple things like cushion covers / small toys etc etc and progress from there. In which case if its something that she really gets into then there's no reason we wouldn't buy something much better in 12 months time once she knows what sort of sewing she enjoys most.
So far the Janome J3-24 at £169 seems to fit the bill but I'll look closely at all the models mentioned on here. There's a lot to take in so not exactly a quick choice.
To go with it, I'll pick up some good scissors and a seam ripper and point her in the direction of profabrics website and burda style magazine.
2nd the 'local sewing shop' advice, a nice hefty 2nd hand jobbie would be the way to go.
We have a great one near us but the missus is avoiding them because every time she goes in there the guy awkwardly tries to make her an offer for her 1950's Singer that she inherited from my gran and which is most definitely [u]not[/u] for sale.
It is a slippery slope, as she'll start needing a pretty sewing box, good quality cutting shears (a must) a small table, shelves, threads of many colours, the list goes on and on 🙂
P.S. You can make bunting without a sewing machine. Just needs pinking shears and fabric glue.
Thanks for allyour help - just pushed the butoon on this one - I think it'll turn out to be a good machine for a complete beginner - and Russel at SMD was very helpful
[url= http://www.sewingmachines.co.uk/SMD762_info.htm ]SMD762[/url]
2nd hand is the way to go, these things are expensive, but good ones last forever. Find a strong one, so it can sew through inner tubes for wallet making and through multiple layers of thick fabric for making bike packing gear.