New sewing machine stoke

[ratspike]

I thought I'd firmly convinced myself that an industrial machine would be too big for my workspace, that it'd be too noisy, I could get by without one, and all that blah blah blah. Happy as I've been with my vintage domestics there were still difficult to work with when it came to certain parts of making a kilt, and a constant struggle for making bags. For giggles I decided to troll Craigslist on Saturday, and I figured if there was anything for 3 bills or less I'd send an email, and if it was still available I'd go check it out.

Sunday morning I went to have a look at this fabulous Juki DDL-555. The woman selling it spent a bunch of time explaining how it worked and let me spend almost an hour sewing with it so I could be positive it would fit my needs. All I can say is wow. Just completely wow. It feeds thick material like it's nothing. Things like topstitching at the corners of cargo pockets and sewing velcro or the bottom part of belt loops over lots of pleats were always a challenge with my domestic machines, but easy as pie on the Juki. This one is set up to sew pretty slowly, relatively speaking, at 1000 stitches per minute. I was expecting it to be touchy, but it's super easy to work quite slow with it, plus it handwheels really well too. It's so precise and allows for so much control compared to what I'm used to. I spent some quality time this morning sewing one long, slow, straight stitch after another. Oh, and the presser foot knee lift? Completely just like wow.

If you sew a lot and ever have a chance to work with one of these, I highly recommend it. I understand why so many hardcore home sewers have industrial machines now. I'm way excited to knock out my next kilt order with it.

Pics or it didn't happen and all that...