Monday, March 1, 2010

The Singer sings

Sewing machines that do automatic embroidery are old news to me, but I didn't know you can buy machines that let you you work freehand. Seriously, you just push the fabric around the way you want, taking all sort of tight turns without the least resistance.

This is a lot more attractive to me than programming something in and then effectively sitting back to watch a lot of perfect embroidery stitch itself into your fabric - for me, the fun is in trying and messing up and ripping out and starting all over again after another cookie break. But you pay an awful lot for the privilege, so I'm staying with my 1940s Singer a while yet.

Consolation prize: said Singer can do some embroidery too.


Cute? And also:


Yes, well, you see what I mean about the messing up part. Still - embroidery! and don't I have a great eye for exactly the right shade of thread, even without the memory required for bringing the fabric along with me to to the store?

1 comment:

Kathleen Taylor said...

My sewing machine has computer programmed embroidery stitches (none of which I use), but I do freehand machine quilting with it- I lower the feed dogs and the tension, and just go at it. It did take me a couple of quilts to get the hang of it, but it works pretty well now, and I'm looking forward to doing more quilting when this book is done.