A bit of a Pfaff...

 

My New Pfaff

I love sewing machines. I have a few. Some are on loan to friends and I have two machines and an overlocker. I have been considering buying a new machine for a while and I had a good idea about what I wanted to get. Let me give you a little bit of background.

I learnt on a mchine Like this

 

My mum owned a New Home machine, which I learnt to sew on as a teenager. Something went wronf with it and it was never fixed. Then, when I went off to University, my mother-in-law bought ne a Jones Machine. It was at least 20 years old when I go it and I had it for nearly 20 years. Again it broke and at the time I didn't even consider if there was anyone who could fix it - I looked for a new machine - That was back in 2011,

I had this machine when I was a student

At the time I didn't want anything fancy, but I did want the option to control stitch length and width and bought the mechanical Janome CS1000.

Janome CS100 and my Overlocker

It served me well as I started to get into sewing, but having used Bernina machines at school I knew they were almost indestructible and kept my eye out for one. In 2013 I found a 707 Minimatic on Ebay for about £40. It had been a school machine and as soon as it arrived I had it serviced - so for less than £100 I had a fantastic machine. I have been using it as my main machine ever since and just using the Janome as a spare and for sewing on buttonholes and some stretch stitches - my Bernina can be a bit funny with knits. It's straight stitching is perfect and it will go through a lot of fabric. However I was starting to notice that I needed a few more options when sewing and started looking around.

My Bernina - I love this machine!

I had always said that I would upgrade to a new mechanical Bernina, but once I had saved up I found that the 1008 had been discontinued and remaining new models were going for a whopping £2000. - way out of my budget. I could have just stretched to the very basic Bernina - which was at the top of my budget.

So I started to look around. I knew I wanted a good solid machine - ideally metal framed and long lasting. I needed it to have a good straight stitch, zigzag, buttonhole function and triple zigzag, along with a few other stretch stitches. My Bernina is fab, but I was getting frustrated having to swap machines when I wanted to sew stretch stitches or buttonholes. 

Initially I looked at the Bernette 38 and the Juki HZL G210 - both looked great and there were some good reviews of both. You can see these in this post. The Juki had the box feed system and the Bernette had a 7 point feed dog. Both machines had a range of decorative stitches and were fully computerised. basically they would sew themselves!!! but I had a niggle - Computerised tech means great quiet machines - but if it goes wrong - that's pretty much it and I doubt I'd have enough saved in a couple of years to replace a machine again. Plus - who needs 350 different stitches? not me.

I decided to look at some mechanical machines. After a bit of research I settled on the Pfaff Select 3.2. No buzzes or bells, but it does what I want it to.

My New Pfaff

 

It features a range of different regular and stretch stitches. It has a buttonhole function - yes it's 4 step, but I'm fine with that as I find it gives me more control and it has the IDT dual feed - which I'm already loving. I got my new Pfaff on Wednesday, but didn't get chance to test it out until Thursday morning. I made space on my sewing table and had a go - It's a little different to a 60 year old Bernina, so I kept the manual on hand for any thing I couldn't work out. Once I got it set up correctly I found it sews beautifully. It's not as quiet as a computerised machine, but has a reassuring sound. I've already sewn some Lingerie on it and although setting the right widths for various zigzag stitches took a little time to get used to it has worked really well.

I'll give it some other garment work out over the next couple of weeks. It came with a 30 day Money back guarantee and 10 year warranty, so I feel confident to put it through it's paces a bit.

I sold the Janome as I shouldn't need it now and cleaned and put the Bernina in its case. I felt a bit sad (almost guilty) about that as I've become very attached to it over the years - but I know I will use it when I want beautiful top stitching on jeans or to do free motion embroidery.