Confessions of a sewing machine hoarder

When I started sewing a few years back, I would have never envisioned myself having not 1 but 5 sewing machines, not to mention the over locker, embroidery only machine and spare parts machine for my 730 record…

It all started innocently enough, I wanted to upgrade my sewing machine. I had been sewing for a year or so and was starting to get frustrated with the limitations and terrible stitch quality of my basic department store bought Brother sewing machine.

For my 30th birthday, I took a big step and on a few recommendations and a test drive, I upgraded my sewing machine to a Janome DC6030. I absolutely love this machine, it’s fancy thread cutter and direct stitch selection where a huge step up from my first machine, not to mention the hugely improved stitch quality I thought I would never need anything else. Haha how naive I was..

Not long after, with an improved stitch quality I noticed a huge shift in my sewing and started to think about my finishes and even the possibility of sewing knits so of course I wanted an overlocker, after much deliberations and research I settled for a Babylock Stellar, it’s Babylock’s base model, it doesn’t have any of the bells and whistles like air threading, but the whole front opens out making it easy enough to thread and it came with a handful of free lessons so I was sold.

I was happily sewing along, with my Janome and Baby lock thinking this is the life, when in a space of around 6 weeks, I came in to possession of both another sewing machine and an embroidery machine.

The sewing machine is another Janome, this time a DC2050 an entry level computerised machine that belonged to a dear friends late grandmother, the machine had barely been used and I couldn’t bare for it to go else where, I justified it by thinking it would be nice to have a back up machine for when my main machine went in for a service, or even I could use it to teach my nieces who had shown an interest to sew.

And the embroidery machine you ask? it’s a Bernina Deco 330, an embroidery only machine that was given to me by an Aunt how bought it new, used it maybe twice then packed it up and left it in a cupboard as she preferred to use her Janome instead. when she heard I had taken up sewing she offered it to me, and well I’m not one to say no to family or a machine that needs a good home it seems..

So here I was almost a year after I upgraded my first machine having gone from one machine, to 2 sewing machines, an overlocker and an embroidery machine. Any sane person would have said, yep that’s enough but not me… After the embroidery machine I started to look in to Bernina machines, I had heard about them in the online sewing world but never really paid much attention. I saw how much they where loved specifically the vintage kind and began to like the idea of adding an old, all metal machine that could handle just about anything to my “collection”

For Mother’s Day last year, the idea came to fruition and the husband found me a lovely Bernina 801 and I was instantly in love, I could see what all the fuss was about, it sewed beautifully, and handled anything I threw at it. That was it, I thought I was done, I have more than enough machines I said…

Until… One day I was on one of the online auction sites when I saw it, a Bernina 730 Record.

I just loved the vintage shape and colour and it looked like it was in pretty good shape, and all for $20! Before I knew it I was driving to the other side of town to pick it up. it had belonged to the guys mother who had gone in to a home, he knew nothing about it and just wanted to be rid of it as it was taking up space. When I saw it I couldn’t believe it, it looked fantastic, had all the original accessories including the dealer catalogue with hand written notes and it worked.

The original plan was to sell it on, I even listed it for sale and had a lady wanting it, she had one that needed parts and wanted to use mine as a donor machine, I just couldn’t sell it, not just to be pulled apart anyway. So I kept it much to the husbands dismay… I promised him that would be it, I had more machines than I needed, I wouldn’t bring anymore home (yeah right)

I wasn’t looking for another machine. I’d promised the husband that I wouldn’t bring anymore home, I had more than enough blah blah blah.

I was in a second hand shop looking for some treasures for our recently acquired vintage caravan, tucked away in a corner saw a box with Elna in a bright orange print I couldn’t help myself, I had to have a look. Low and behold the box held a little Elna lotus.

but there was no foot pedal. I was going to not worry about it but I mentioned it to the husband and jokingly said it would have been perfect to take away in the caravan. Surprisingly he agreed and suggested I see what a replacement pedal would be worth, I made some calls and found one so went back and bought the little Lotus. when I went to collect the pedal, the sewing machine repair guy tested it out for me and was quite excited by my little treasure, he couldn’t believe the condition and that it still had the original cardboard box and accessories, he offered to buy it off me there and then but there was no way I was going to part with it, not yet anyway. I can’t wait to take it away in the caravan.

So can you really ever have too many sewing machines? Probably… I’m pretty sure I have enough machines, I’m starting to run out of space to store them but I’m not going to say that I won’t bring anymore home, because honestly, the last couple times I’ve said it, it hasn’t exactly worked out. Maybe I just need to accept my hoarding ways instead.

So how many machines are too many? And how many do you have, I’m sure there are other fellow hoarders out there, I can’t be the only one… Can I?