The new sewing addition has arrived and I can finally reveal to you what resides in my sewing corner. Meet Sookie the Juki!

I have bought a Juki 8100e industrial straight stitch machine. I have looked at industrial machines for awhile as an alternative to say the Juki TL-98 or even the Janome 1600 and I have looked at the old big Singers too just to get the extra harp space for machine quilting, but after several discussions with the DH we came back full circle to the idea of an industrial machine.
We found a dealer who had one set up for me to try, so we set off to Birmingham to
S Nutt Sewing Machines to have a look. As soon as I saw the machine in action I knew it would be fab! But the big question, of course, was would it do free motion as the feed dogs don't drop...? I knew it had to be possible as I found
Katie's video showing her quilting on her industrial machine. A few emails later (thanks Katie) and some help from the Nutt brothers the solution was found. The work around is that you drop the stitch length to 0 and with a high shank free motion foot from Janome free motion quilting is possible.
I have already completed the quilt and the experience was bliss.. No fighting with the bulk!
So if one new machine wasn't fun enough.. Another found its way into the house the same week and it is a complete polar opposite... A hand-crank Singer 99k made in September 1931. She needs a little TLC but is already a working machine. I had it out this weekend with the girls and set about threading it to give it a try... DD1 was cheeky enough to catch my pose so I could see the needle to thread it. (sharing this picture with you is in the category of keeping it real!)

I didn't bother to put it on a table and being that it is wireless you can use it anywhere lol. So all threaded up we gave it a go and it worked!

Today I cleaned out the bobbin area and replaced the race wick as it wasn't doing its job anymore. I just loved the idea of getting this old girl working and sitting on the patio in the summer sewing away. What is interesting is that the upper tension on the Singer is the same as the industrial Juki so even though they are 83 years apart they really aren’t that different!
Until next time...♥