An experiment in possible frustration

[victoriavictrix]

I have in my possession

ONE: Piece'o'crap "sewing machine" AS SEEN ON TV! that retails for between $30 and $50
ONE: 1950s no-name made in Japan sewing machine FOUND IN THE GARAGE with mud dauber nests on it. Probable cost at a garage sale: $20-$50

I am going to sew (or try) identical garments on each, thus (I hope) ending the debate about buying the Piece'o'crap AS SEEN ON TV! "machine"

Setup and cost of setup:

AS SEEN ON TV!: Took it out of the box. Plugged it in. Bobbin cover immediately fell off. Put it back on. Noticed that the thread it is strung with is also on a bobbin. Will it work with a spool? Don't know, I'll go with what it's strung with first. Note there is one stitch and it is not adjustable. One straight stitch, no stretch, size of stitch not adjustable. No manual. Bogus. Setup cost $0. Frustration 0

NO-NAME: Found it in the garage. Had it brought in. Handy friend took it slightly apart, cleaned it and oiled all the appropriate places. Might have been issues with the motor, so took motor to sewing machine repair shop.* Motor was fine, repair shop charged me nothing. There is an adjustable straight and zigzag stitch, no obvious "stretch" stitch BUT zigzag does work as a stretch stitch. It is also a model that works with a huge set of cams for "decorative" stitches, and lo and behold all the cams are still with it. Bonus! No manual though, and can't find the manual for this thing online. Bogus. Setup cost $0. Had to thread it myself. Easy, trivially easy to thread until time for the needle. ARG! There is no light on this thing! ARG! Old eyes cannot SEE tiny needle! Moved light, got reading glasses. Frustration 1.


*Sewing Machine repair shop. This is a man with a little shop in a tiny strip-mall. He is old. So is everything he repairs. The front of the store is awash with ancient vacuums and sewing machines with pickup tickets on them. The back of the shop looks like something that would give Jamie and Adam from Mythbusters a joygasm. Floor to ceiling in old vacuums and sewing machines. By ghod, this is the place. If the "sewing machine repair shop" you go do does NOT look like this, if in fact the front is full of brand new machines, turn around and walk out. These people do not do repairs, they do "cleaning and adjustment" and will, in fact, do their level best to persuade you to buy a new machine. The truth is that for doll clothes you need two things: straight stitch and stretch stitch, ideally adjustable. You can get away with NOT having a stretch stitch (ah thank you Home Ec in the 60s for this little tip) by stretching the fabric manually as it goes under the stitching foot. So no, unless you are planning on sewing curtains, prom dresses, quilting, sewing doll clothes for profit or in general do not have a Day Job and are not going to school, no, you do not need that fancy machine.

[maywong]

"ARG! Old eyes cannot SEE tiny needle! Moved light, got reading glasses. Frustration 1." That's me right now. LOL

[victoriavictrix]

ROUND TWO: Pre-sewing.

Garage Find: HOORAY! It has a knee lever! For those of you who have never experienced the joys of a machine with a knee lever, let me tell you, it is awesome. The machine rarely gets away from you, you can sew really slowly, and best of all no foot cramps.

AS SEEN ON TV: Foot pedal, and a bad one. Also, no light. Also, the stitch tension, bobbin tension, and stitch length are not adjustable. ARG! It also does not reverse, which means anchoring each seam will require sewing a few stitches by hand cranking, turning it around, sewing by handcranking, turning it around.

Garage Find: Frustration: 0
AS SEEN ON TV: Frustration 2

[victoriavictrix]

Round three: FIGHT!

I am doing identical projects on these machines: differing only in material. I am making corsets. Small, several pieces, both straight and curved seams. Because I know that Garage Find is a robust baby, she is getting the harder one: cotton velvet lined with raw silk. AS SEEN ON TV! is getting muslin and heavy t-shirt knit.

Garage find: I definitely need to get a permanent light here; all the problems with this are because I can't see where my seam is (black thread on black velvet in shadow). After an initial bit of fiddling with the upper tension, she's sewing beautifully; the mechanics and the motor are all quiet and robust. Whipped through this in record time. It's now at the finishing stage.

AS SEEN ON TV!: I was wrong, you can adjust the upper tension: too much, too little, or just barely right. Half an inch in and the thread broke. Finally got the tension adjusted. Dear ghod, it is eating the knit. I would believe it if this was some of my delicate power mesh, but this is fairly robust cotton knit, and it's being sucked down into the feed dogs. Some more learning of its ways, and I am sewing. But. This thing only goes one way; forward. Not only is there no push-button reverse, it is built so you can't hand-crank it backwards. It is only geared to run forward. And trying to reverse the pieces so you can lock the end of the seam only results in jamming. Periodically it tries to eat the fabric. I hadn't sewn for five minutes before it started skipping stitches too. No hope for it, I'll have to hand-tack down the ends of every seam to keep the pieces from pulling apart. It performs marginally better on the muslin. This thing is noisy. The thread breaks periodically for no apparent reason, I can only assume that the needle itself occasionally cuts its own thread. On the plus side, I can pick the whole thing up and turn it on its side to see the needle in good light to thread it. I have the knit and the muslin halves done, but frustration causes me to wait till tomorrow to finish this.

Garage find: Frustration 0
AS SEEN ON TV!: Frustration Warp Factor 10 Mr Sulu

[victoriavictrix]

ROUND FOUR: ELIMINATION AND SUBSTITUTION!

Garage find: Lining and outer shell stitched together. No issues at all except my old eyes.

AS SEEN ON TV!: Oh mores! Oh Tempus! Oh heck....Stitched lining and shell together....more or less. Skipped stitches and thread breakage. One thing for sure; the feed dogs have a tremendous problem with knits. Knits suck right down in there. Also, the needle either isn't sharp enough to penetrate 4 layers of relatively thin fabric (on the seam lines) or the thing doesn't have enough power to push through. Threatens to jam many times, but I am experienced in sewing machine wrangling and manage to coax it out without breaking needles or hurling machine across the room.

Then, while I am here, decide to reverse, pin and topstitch.

What a disaster. Seriously. Oh and it finds a whole new way to break the thread, by somehow getting a double loop around the take-up lever. Skipped stitches galore, outright refusing to punch through the fabric even manually, and finally sucking the fabric into the feed dogs.

Back in the box you go. But wait, there's more! I have a second and slightly more expensive one of these things, the "Dressmaker II". Why? Because my husband is a sucker--I mean, an impulse buyer. I remove it and set it up.

Already this looks a tad more promising. Dressmaker II (retailing for between $24 and $44 dollars) has a light, 3 stitch sizes, a better stitch tension adjuster AND a reverse! On to topstitching.

Dressmaker II is a lot quieter. A lot more robust. It finishes the job....but.....

It does try to jam once. It does try to suck the fabric into the feed dogs at the end. It creates at least one thread snarl on the bobbin side. Amusingly, the light flickers when you sew! I haven't checked yet to see if that was just a loose bulb though. And right at the end the thread breaks for no reason.

[victoriavictrix]

FINAL SHOWDOWN:

AS SEEN ON TV! One: the inappropriately named "Perfection" is a piece of garbage. It does not have a reverse, it has only one stitch size, it has no light. It sucks even robust knits into the feed dogs, it cannot handle the equivalent of 4 layers of common muslin. It jams repeatedly. It skips stitches. The uptake arm occasionally manages to get a double wrap of thread around itself and break the thread. The needle cuts through the thread. The thread also breaks for no reason I can ascertain. The needle occasionally cannot penetrate 4 layers of fabric. I could not finish this small project with it. Verdict: get this machine only if you are a deep masochist that wish to be punished. It would take less time to sew a doll corset by hand than with the "Perfection". Retails for $24.99

AS SEEN ON TV! Two: the "Dressmaker II". This machine has 3 stitch sizes, a reverse and a light. The takeup arm is situated so it cannot snarl the thread. Already a big improvement over the "Perfection." It did finish the project that the previous machine could not. However, there are two inexplicable thread snarls on the underside and as I finished, the thread broke. And the light flickered when I sewed. Verdict: this might be something to have for a traveling machine to a convention if you were bound and determined not to hand sew--but hand sewing is honestly going to take less time and cause you less grief. Retails as low as $19, as high as $44

Garage Find: Finished the topstitching on the corset like a champ, handling 3 layers of heavy cotton velvet as if it was sewing through tissue paper. Another bonus, I found a box full of attachments in one of the cabinet that includes a ruffler, and to my joy, I found the manual for all the attachments free online from the Smithsonian archives. Mine was free, and the work to get it going again was free, but it will be worth your while to find a proper sewing machine repairman, stalk garage sales and Craig's List, and find one like it. The odds of you paying $50 or less, all told, to have a fine, workhorse of a machine are very high. Alternatively, there are people who will sell you refurbs from this era, both in their own sites and on ebay, for less than $100 including shipping.

[delbelcoure]

Thanks for the blow by blow description
Susan

[Greyhaunt]

Wow, the AS SEEN ON TV model sounds about like the battery operated sewing machine I saw at a dollar store in Fresno (for $9.99 of course). At least that one was pink and white and came in a cute backpack and could have been used as a doll prop - yours sound like an utter loss ;p

I wonder if there is a way to mount a foot pedal to something so it works like a knee pedal.......

[MidoriKurogami]

This is hilarious! I read this thread last night and about lost it! XD

This is something I've been wondering about. I've been eyeing sewing machines at JoAnns' and I just don't want to pay two grand for one. x.x If I had two grand to pay for a machine, perhaps we'd have a better car! :3 but anyway, I'll keep scouring Craigslist until I find a decent one!

Thanks for this thread! It was both funny and informative! ^_^

[DollyKim]

To their credit I've used $100 portables (must be a bit more now) with okay results. Singer, Brother, a brand known for making sewing machines. A few stitches, a button hole, knobs and dials for stitch length. Not quite like the old Featherweight but 'good enough for now' if you're in a pinch.

Half of the thing I've found with doll clothes is a machine that makes small enough stitches per inch.