As a bit of a change from the garden I've been spending some time inside sewing, but my little sewing machine was struggling.
I bought my faithful little Bernette 80e sewing machine back in 2006 and it's been a great machine. It was the first sewing machine I owned from new and I spent a lot of time learning all about it and how to best sew with it. I'm not a great sewer, but I get by. Over the years I made curtains, cushion covers, baby clothes, pram quilts, dog jackets, Scout dilly bags, zip pouches, pillowcases, and tote bags. I used it to sew curtains and a bolster cover for the caravan we had. All of my pajama pants were sewn on that machine and it handled the odd mending job too.
It went like a champion for a good 13 years or so, with the only issue a discolouring of it's off-white plastic housing to a dark yellow. Over the last 12 months it started playing up though. Just a slowing down of the engine really. It still sewed really well, it just took forever to get there. I considered getting it serviced again, but it wasn't an expensive machine and by the time you pay for a servicing and repair, well it can be quite uneconomical.
A friend loaned me a little base model Brother machine, but it just wasn't the same. Everything worked differently, there were no useful tools like the thread cutter or auto needle threader, and it only had a handful of stitches. When sewing my hands kept going to the wrong spots for the reverse lever and the presser foot lifter. I managed to very roughly repair a pair of the Kid's track pants with it, but got frustrated and didn't use it again after (there may have been a lot of swearing involved).
The dodgiest repair job ever.
It was my birthday last week so I decided to celebrate with a new machine. I went back to the same shop I'd bought my Bernette from, a small locally owned business, and asked for something similar. I came away with the Janome Sewist 725s. It's a little beauty, and apparently was the machine used on the Great British Sewing Bee.
The new machine, with it's Bernette predecessor and the borrowed Brother in the background.
It's perfect for me. I don't need anything fancy, just something comfortable to use that gets the job done.
In keeping with 2020, my first project of course was cloth masks.
These are three different patterns. The one on the left I found the best fit for my face - it's from the Sweet Red Poppy pattern shown. These masks all look a little bulky as I used a layer of non-woven recycled shopping bag material in each of them. For future masks I think I'll put a removable filter pocket in instead.
Until next time,
@Sammie
Original content created by @Sammie.
