Back and Forth
On one hand, I really want a new machine. On the other hand, should I be spending money on a hobby that I don’t know if I will love. I think I have a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. So I figure researching to find out what my options are will be my best start.
The Kenmore was probably a fantastic machine in its time. It’s all metal, still running strong, and very very clean for being an older machine. From my non-expertise eye it appears that it still stitches well other than possibly some tension problems depending on the fabric. But when I tried to do a few projects I found that there were things that I wanted to do that the machine just wasn’t capable of allowing me to do. For example, the needle cannot be moved, so I am not able to stitch near the edge of the material. As I mentioned earlier, I do not have a blind hem foot and did not find that I could still purchase feet for the machine either.
Researching
First, I looked on Amazon to see which machines got great reviews from others. We have Amazon Prime because of Amazon Mom so I could get the machine in two days with free shipping. Many of the Brother’s got high reviews and they have so many options. I mean seriously, you can get a Brother for $150 that will do anything you could ever imagine. When I was starting to make the towel bibs, I had purchased a Brother from Wal-Mart and it was horrible. So I had to question whether the ones online were really any different than the one from Wal-Mart.
Next, I emailed a friend to see what she had to say. She said not to get a Brother, that hers is a pricey paperweight. She suggested looking into Bernina, Janome, Pfaff, or other brands that can be purchased from a dealer. She said first to look to see what local dealers sell and pretty much choose which dealer you like the best and go from there.
So my next step was to check out the dealers. Actually, my husband, Mark, had a day off of work so he did the major leg work for me. He went to Royce Quilting, which sold Bernina’s, and to two other nearby places, one was a Janome dealer and the other Pfaff. We had pretty much all of the information that we needed except I wasn’t able to sew on the machines.
That weekend I was able to check out the Janome dealer and Royce Quilting. The Pfaff dealer is not in town and Mark didn’t think it was appealing enough to drive the extra few miles. I really liked Royce Quilting but the Janome dealer was just ok. They just didn’t have anything extra; there were no extra classes beyond your first class in which they show you the basics of the machine, they didn’t have any fabric. It was just a place to buy a machine and get it serviced. Royce Quilting, on the other hand, had great customer service, they offered classes, and they had fabric among other sewing supplies.
