My Sewing Machine Story

My sewing journey was started in 2013 when daughter was 10 months old (now 3.5 yrs). I was in a very bad stressed out state and joined a t-shirt quilt class.  From then on I fell in love with sewing. Never looked back!!!!!!!

At that time, I had this Dress Maker-II little machine from K-Mart (clearance), which was bought in 2005 and it costed around $25/-.



It had very bad temperament with tension (that could be adjusted manually) and you had to keep the thread very very long (like 6-7 inches) to make sure it doesn't un-thread before it starts sewing next time (Lots of thread was getting wasted for sure). But it was only when I realized that it had issues was when I sewed with a Viking at my t-shirt quilting class. So to finish that  quilt, I had to buy a new machine.

That's how I ended up with this BROTHER CS 6000i. It was bought in November 2013 for $140/-.

(The little face in the middle is the product of 2008 !!!!!!LOL)

 

At that time, I never knew how far I was going to go with the sewing. This was the best machine I could buy within my budget limits. It had all the fancy features like auto threading, needle in/out button, speed control. All the feet (walking foot, darning foot, overlock foot) were working very well. I did 5 big quilts and 3 wall hangings and many garments with that machine. I never complained about any issues with that machine (well..for the first 2 years). It was like a dream machine for an outrageously low price!!!!!! The reason behind this low price was figured out by me when it finally quit on me in little over 2 years. TRUST ALL THOSE NEGATIVE REVIEWS!!!!!! THEY ARE SO TRUE. All my decorative stitches had very bad tension issues. Top thread looks very fine and the bobbin thread wasn't even poking the fabric at all. even the straight stitch gave up at the end.



None of the usual suggestions helped to resolve it. I clean the machine regularly and take care of it nicely. But the machine started getting very hot within 10 minutes of  sewing and stitch was skipping with a loud bang. That's when I learnt all about sewing machine mechanism, timing etc...

The repair shops charge $120/- just to take a look at the machine. My husband had a planned trip to India anyway. So I decide to send it to India to get fixed. That's why I love my home country-India. They fix anything at a reasonable price. So it will be flying to India next week :-)). Hopefully it will come back happy and healthy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Will update here if it gets fixed.

Anyhoo..... I was thinking maybe I should upgrade my sewing machine ;-). I badly need more throat/harp space for quilting.  SO I did what I would have done in my dreams!!!!!!! YES!!!!!! I bought a new JUKI TL 2010Q High Speed Sewing and Quilting Machine :-) at sewvacdirect.com. I am super excited. I can't believe I paid $950/- (after adding 5% coupon) for a sewing machine. Hopefully I won't have automatic needle threader issue as some reviews say. Keeping my fingers crossed. This was the only machine I could see with nice reviews. But it has only straight stitches. So I will keep the Brother for garments making (fancy stitches, knit stitches, overlocks etc). I am going to update with the new machine as I open it and start sewing with it (can't wait!!!!!!yikes!!!!!!).

 

Thanks for stopping by and Be good until my next post,

Love,

Jyothi

*Disclaimer:- I am not paid by anyone to write the reviews.