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Looking for advice on sewing machine Sewing machine
Tokyo Onna   Advanced Beginner JAPAN Member since 8/7/09 Posts: 1	Login to reply to this post Like this post Date: 6/25/12 7:25 AM My needs are simple. I want a machine that threads itself, doesn't drop stitches, doesn't do that aggravating thing where the bobbin thread bunches up. My current oooold Toyota machine does all of those things too often and it takes too long to figure out why it's misbehaving. I live in Japan and love my new Juki serger so would prefer recommendations on Japanese machines. I don't embroider or quilt but the ability to make attractive buttonholes would be nice. And I want to spend less than $500. What should I buy and why? Much obliged, Virginia
skae   Advanced MN USA Member since 4/23/07 Posts: 2738	Login to reply to this post In reply to Tokyo Onna << Like this post Date: 6/25/12 7:52 AM when was the last time you had your sewing machine tuned up. Sometime when your machine is starting to do all the misbehaving it need to go in to a dealer or a sewing machine repair and tune up. Mine started doing that last year I have a pfaff 2140 sewing machine once it got the adjustments it needed it works fine. ------ Galatians 5:22-23 The Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. There is no law against such things as these
sewfrequent Intermediate TX USA Member since 6/27/03 Posts: 2902	Login to reply to this post In reply to Tokyo Onna << 1 member likes this. Date: 6/25/12 10:14 AM Look at the Juki machines! I think they might have a model at $500 or so. They are very good with buttonholes and have been getting great reviews here.
heathergwo Advanced Beginner CA USA Member since 11/14/11 Posts: 766	Login to reply to this post Like this post Date: 6/25/12 11:41 AM Oh, yes! I looked at a Juki F300 (I think?) when I was researching for a combo machine. It was VERY nice and sewed beautifully. It had some great features and seemed like a really well built, solid machine. It was high on my list, but I ended up going with the Brother. If you look at their product listing and pick a couple of machines that seem to fit what your needs are and then read the reviews here on PR. Good luck! ------ Brother Innovis 1250D Singer Curvy 8763 Brother 1034D Janome 385.19606 Brother 2340CV
Mufffet   Intermediate VT USA Member since 8/14/05 Posts: 8909	Login to reply to this post Like this post Date: 6/25/12 1:15 PM I have had very good luck with Janome. I really like my Janomes, both the ones I own now, and the ones I have given new homes to. I had an older New Home made in Japan - in the early 80s - terrific machine. Then the Kenmores made by Janome - terrific machines. All around satisfactory - feet are reasonable and do the job. Then I had a Janome Jem Gold and a Jem II, both now re-homed just because I had too many machines, and also because there was a need that those two machines could fill. Now I have an inexpensive Janome computerized 8050, and a Janome-Kenmore I bought refurbished several years ago which is a dream of a sewer. My DD uses it often to make garments and bags. Both these machines were under 300 here in the States. I see on the Janome Japan site some really pretty machines we do not have here! If it were my purchase, I would go with the Janome at my price point. I don't know what machines cost in Japan. However, if you can shop around, do try the machines you can try. See if any one brand "speaks to your needs." :) Yes, people love their JUKIs as well, so the field for you in Japan seems wide. ------ "Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." --Dalai Lama I have sewing machines
beauturbo Advanced CA USA Member since 5/2/09 Posts: 1434	Login to reply to this post In reply to Tokyo Onna << Like this post Date: 6/25/12 2:55 PM I don't think you are going to get a machine that totally top threads it's self, in the top threading part of it, for less than $500 anyplace. Just because if you mean just staging the thread on the top of the machine, and then hitting a button someplace, and some robotic arms are going to grab it and thread it all for you through the whole top thread path at all, and the needle. I have sewn on some machines like that though. They were some of the more expensive Juki made in Japan ones though. They might still make one like that there, if so, it might be called a Juki Jurve. You could check it out, being there maybe. I don't know if they still sell those there at all or not? They would cost more than $500 though. I do think most new machines at least have a push down more manual with your finger's kind of little needle threader on them now though, to just pop the thread through the needle eye, for you, as long as you thread the rest of the top part of the machine yourself. I think the bobbin thread bunching up, is not specific machine related to any particular machine at all, and is just what always happens on any sewing machine, if you don't have the top thread, threaded up right, and you have no or not enough top tension on your top thread for just any reason. In that case, then that just has got to happen. So anyone could actually get machine after machine in a row, and if for some reason you had not enough top thread tension, or threaded it up wrong, that could actually happen on machine after machine, of all brands and kinds, all in a row too. So something to maybe consider and think about. If I actually lived in Japan, I would probably get a Janome or a Juki, just because that would for sure be a good place for it and where they are both just headquartered, and probably even the very best place for the best selection of all of those. I think I would just test sew on a whole bunch of them in person, then pick the one I liked the best most likely. But just know, I and anyone else anyplace, can actually make any sewing machine in the whole world, immediately get the thread all loopy and bunched up in the bobbin area and on the back of the sewing fabric, in about one second even, if I really choose to miss-thread a machine on purpose, or just don't have it threaded up right, or have my top tension by accident or on purpose set at zero or such. It has just got to happen then. So that can actually just happen on any machine, just anyplace, from just operator error too.
beauturbo Advanced CA USA Member since 5/2/09 Posts: 1434	Login to reply to this post In reply to Tokyo Onna << Like this post Date: 6/25/12 3:10 PM I still even have a lovely Toyota made machine back from the 1980's. That one was made just very nice and expensivley, and it still works perfect too. It's actually a little embroidery only machine and was made by Toyota Asin in Japan. They made them for Singer under the name of SingerEU, and Viking under the name of Viking Huskygram, and I think just more under the Asin name as a Poem machine. That one was a $1500 machine, even back in the 1980's, I did not buy it brand new though, as could not afford that. That little old Asin/Toyota embroidery machine, even though it only has a 4 x 4 inch sewing field, and no thread cutters at all,(and runs on old DOS) once you have sewn out an embroidery design on it, and taken the embroidered fabric out of that machine, from just the stitching of it, if you did everything just right, you could not even ever tell it was not made on some huge $40,000 commercial embroidery machine either. So it's not ever just the brand of the machine at all, in how expensively or nicely something is made, instead you really got to compare more machine to machine, and more like machines to like machines, just because their is huge range of machines in any brand or such, just anyways.

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