Saturday, November 8, 2014

New Quilter

One of my golfing buddies said she'd like to learn how to quilt after seeing pictures of my quilts. So I kindly offered to teach her everything I know. I told her it would take about 5 minutes.

We worked out a time, and she came over. We took a tour of my quilts first. They just keep popping up all over my house. First thing we worked on was scant quarter inch seams. We were sewing on my machine, so I told her to go home and play with hers. We also took an outing to a quilt store. I had to buy backing. Why don't I purchase things like that when I buy the stuff for piecing??? I actually know. Because I need to see the quilt to get a feel for what kind of backing it needs. I guess the quilt does talk to me. I thought they were mute to me.

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On a way different note: A couple years ago, I got a Singer sewing machine for our grand daughter (T) for Christmas. She asked for one. Bought a starter model at JoAnn's. It has everything she'll need for quite awhile, then we can see if she keeps her interest. She was doing lots of things for a little while. Then it got put away.

Meanwhile, my daughter (T's mother) got interested in sewing, and tried using this machine. It wouldn't work. I looked at it too, and couldn't get it to do anything. I told her it needed to go to a repairman.

We took it in on Saturday. They told us at the shop that some of the machines bought at big box stores, etc., are made to be thrown away. They cannot be repaired. She would certainly know better than I do, but that seems wrong to me. My daughter did get it back today, repair person said it needed a good cleaning, and it had issues. If it ever makes a noise like this to stop sewing right away or it won't be able to be repaired. I guess it doesn't pay to buy cheap??? But my little Brother $100+ machine has been just purring along at classes or travelling.

Thanks,
Lin

2 comments:

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

I can totally agree on small cheap machines bought at Wal-Mart/Hancocks and other places- I had plenty of them over the 40+ years of sewing and almost every time ended up donating to Goodwill saying it needed to be fixed or tossed - each time one would stop working I would take it to see if it could be repaired and it was going to cost more than I paid for it!! that shouldn't be but it was. But then I got a featherweight and had a lot of trouble with that one too - person said it worked great and hubby bought it over ebay - when I got it I had to have it fixed 2 times before it started to work good and ended up paying even more for that machine

Cheryl said...

Sorry you had such trouble with the cheaper sewing machine. I have heard the same thing with the newer, less expensive machines.