Sew... Now what...

[pasithea]

Hooboy... I'm still feeling sick to my stomach over this but... I finally broke down and bought a new sewing machine. The sewing machine I've been using is great. Don't get me wrong. She's a little fussy sometimes but she's also a White Treadle who was built in 1897. Being 111 years old earns you the right to be a little fussy, I think.


The real problem with Ms. White is that most of my sewing lately is exotic and bizarre fabrics that don't agree well with her. She does a straight stitch and she does it damn well, but that's it. Straight stitch forward only. I always end up doing a lot of hand work. (See also, hand-sewing 20 buttonholes on prickvixen's coat a while back.

Anyhow... I was really hoping I might find an old Singer 319. The 319's are probably most often seen with a motor attached but you can disconnect it and run it off a treadle and it would fit in my White cabinet with no modification. The 319, while not an amazing machine, does support zig zags and a few other basic stitches and would fill most of my basic sewing needs. It also has the plus of (like my White) being nearly indestructible and will continue to operate more or less forever.

But... Well... Part of me was ready to try sewing in the 21st century and Eddie's Quilting Bee had a Viking Husqvarna Sapphire 830 which had been bought and returned a few days later to upgrade to a higher machine that they were willing to sell me as 'new' with complete warranties, and it is awfully nice to not need to think about a lot of stuff, and the auto-foot features should save me a lot of time and, compared to the 319's 5 stitches, the Husky has 115 and (after making the poor sales guy demo it on half the fabrics in the store) it can handle sewing just about any material I can come up with.

Still... A huge part of me is screaming upset shouting at me, "You just spent almost a thousand dollars so you wouldn't spend $15 at Hot Topic" :| *sigh* It is going to be a VERY long time before I feel like I've used this machine enough to really justify having purchased it. (Unless I make myself a half dozen really nice custom corsets, then it will pay for itself in no time) Don't get me wrong, it's a very nice machine and the Huskys are well known for being very reliable. I suppose though I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't do more. It has basic embroidery that I'll never use. Just 15 alphabets of stuff. Wooo. The Embroidery machines are stupidly expensive (starting at around 3K for the Huskys, though some of the other brands are cheaper) and then the crappiest most do-nothing software doesn't even come with them and runs $500. If you want something decent, it costs more like $1500 for the application to export stuff to it from your computer. So... Not like I'd planned to do any serious embroidery work anyhow but it would have been pretty neat to be able to take some of my Illustrator stuff and dump it to a piece of cloth but it wasn't worth an additional couple of grand. I can use the basic stitching it does and just lay out patterns and embroider semi-by-hand using the machine and I could always patchwork fabrics onto something too, so.. Not the end of the world.

Back on the positive, definitely points in its favor are the simplification of stitch selection and configuration. It does most of that for me automagically and that's already greatly reducing potential mistakes. I also love the auto-start stitch and stop-stitch. I <3 being able to work in full reverse. I like the combination seam and edge mode (which can be selected from preset by fabric type) and lots of other stuff, and I must shamefully admit that I like that it's portable and I can set up a table in my studio and watch cartoons while I sew instead of staring at a blank wall as I do with Ms. White.

Anyhow. I have some art to upload from the weekend but then I may be quiet for a while as I get caught up on a bunch of sewing projects which I now no-longer have an excuse to push off. (Before it was easy. They were mostly hand-stitching projects and the time investments for them were huge)

Comments

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Interesting how you take after your mother :-) I shall endeavor not to refer to you as a seamstress again :-)

What kinds of re-enactments? I've always thought that was kind of a strange thing to do.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Not really much in common. More like I was property that could be put to use to make money. My sewing is a corruption to make perverse and kinky things. Opposite end of the spectrum from wanna-be-like-the-amish.

We did 1600-1800 Americas fur-trapper period re-enactments and Pow-Wow mostly. Spent our summers living in tents. I did a lot of sewing, weaving, leather work, tanning, wood toy-making, woodcarving, gunsmithing, blacksmithing, lead casting, and that sort of thing both for stuff to sell on our trade blanket and stuff that was made in trade to other Rendezvousers. Most flatlanders (tourists) bought things from us with cash where most rendezvousers took trade, but sometimes cash.

In addition to that stuff, I also did a lot of pack-animal type work. Chopping wood, hauling water, setting up and tearing down camps, minding the store, foraging, fishing, hunting, cooking. In some ways it was fun but I kind of resent that my mother profited from it and I did most of the work. (my mother is fat and lazy and my brother has bad allergies and asthma)

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

Wow. Wild stuff. You've lived a diverse lot of experiences. At least the tools of your servitude serve you as a path to your own expression now.