Thursday 22 March 2012

Sewing machines - the older the better!

I need a sewing machine that is capable of multiple layers of fabric and will continue with even stitches over bumpy joins. My little beauty is a Necchi Lydia with heavy metal casing in a very pleasing streamlined design, not only does it work hard, it looks good too.


Now don't get me wrong, modern machines are good, they offer a wealth of variety in stitches and have many feet an attachments to enable this. They have their place in your works space too. 

Try thinking of machines as cars - you have your 2 seater soft top sports car - you use mainly in the summer, nice to look at, nice to drive, not good for family life, then theres the family saloon - great for long journeys keeping everyone comfortable, and then theres the all terrain Landrover, slow but steady and can cope with all sorts of uneven ground. You would not expect your sports car to climb a mountain, nor would you expect your Landrover to deliver a family in comfort on a long journey. Its the same with sewing machines. You need to match the machine to the job - heavy machines do heavy work. Light machines do decorative work. 

Having scouted around on Ebay, I'm pleased to report that there are many reconditioned heavy use and semi industrial sewing machines from the 50's and 60's. As their blurb says they don't build them like this any more. There are plenty of parts and spares around, and if you buy from a reconditioning dealer, they will advise on parts availability. There's not much that go wrong with these machines. They are simple and well built.

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