Sewing Machines I own!

I will take Suzette's suggestions and blog to you about my sewing machines. The first sewing machine I ever owned was given to me by my grandmother around 1989. It's a Remington bought in 1959. Would you believe my mom still has the invoice? My grandmother was an individual that kept a record of everything. At the time, it was the state of the art sewing machine. I do not have a picture of it as it is stored in a cabinet where the machine is almost upside down. A newer machine now sits on that cabinet.

After taking a machine quilting class in 1996 at the Quiltsmith in Shelbourne, Vermont, I realized that I needed a more versatile machine. At that time, I had been taught to tie my quilts or hand quilt them. Machine quilting gave me another option that was much quicker than hand quilting. In Spring 1997, I went shopping and bought my first Bernina. I love my Bernina 1090 and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I still do the bulk of my quilting on it. It's the machine that sits on this beautiful sewing cabinet that my husband custom made for me. I made the mistake of having him modify the machine bed to fit my 180E. Big mistake, now my 1090 moves when I use the free hand system. Oh well, he should be making a cabinet for my 180 so I'll get him to fix it! ;o)

While working for a quilt shop that was a Bernina dealer, I fell in love with the 180E. What I liked was the ability to increase designs and have it stitched on the quilt borders. Our Bernina expert, Gayle, had a sample of the many talents of the 180E. At the time it had not occurred to me that my inability to machine quilt designs on the borders was due to my lack of self confidence. Ironically, I never used the 180E for machine quilting and have barely pushed it's embroidery limits. I have recently started using it for piecing quilts. The High Tech Tuck was done on the 180E and it's the machine I brought to class. I keep my 1090 for machine quilting and now the 180E for piecing. I will say that it is sweet to have two machines available. I don't have to remove a project from one machine in order to sew something quick.

The embroidery module on the 180 (not pictured) has not had much use. I recently bought the Bernina Designer Plus V5 software thinking it would facilitate my quilt label creativity, but even that hasn't been exploited. It's not an easy software to work with. Well, it doesn't do what I want it to do! I need to read the manual, which is over 600 pages. It is not the best designed manual I have ever looked at either. I have thought of trading my 180E, not sure it would be worth trading, for the 730. The interface is much more user friendly and in color. Financially, it doesn't make sense to spend so much money on a computerized machine that becomes "out dated" in a few years. Doing the math, I realized that the software was much cheaper than the 730. Besides, the 180E does everything the 730 does but not as fast. I was told that with the software my 180E becomes the printer.

When you think about it, it's ridiculous the amount of money one can spend on a computerized sewing machine. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't "out dated" so quickly. Alex Anderson has said in one of her podcast, that sewing machines are not made to last forever. Perhaps computerized ones but please, not my 1090!

As for other machines, you have seen my treadle and I do own an older Singer that I think came out in the early 1930s. I haven't been able to take a good picture of it. My camera has the stupids today. I should take that Singer to a dealer to have clean and oiled. My brother found this machine for me. Unfortunately, it has no attachments.

Here you have a very recent picture of my sewing room. It was taken in the morning and since I haven't moved much from the computer, it still looks like it does. Oh, and meet George, my beta fish. You'll find him next to the book case, in the left corner of my sewing table. George and I have had many wonderful conversations! lol

So, what a mess it is hey! The cutting table will need to be cleaned off when I start to put together part two (2) of the Wildberry BOM, which should be as soon as I get myself off this computer. It's amazing how much time one can spend blogging.

Honestly, the mess doesn't bother me at the moment. I know where everything is! When it starts getting on my nerves, I will do a good clean up. Actually, I'm waiting for my husband to finish this custom cabinet that he's making to hold my embroidery threads, supplies and module. This should be completed shortly. I will then do a clean up of my closets, which will lead to a general clean up of my sewing room! lol I will post a picture of this cabinet once complete. Stephen does amazing cabinetry work.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog.