Monday, June 25, 2007

A little out of my element.

I find myself in a really weird position of needing to buy a sewing machine. I think.

Well... first lets start with the fact I don't sew. At all. So keep that in mind. I never dream of sewing. Not even when I have grandchildren. I totally respect those who have the patience to sew. That isn't me. As a matter of a fact, it seems like a really bad idea for me to sew anything. But I'm going to do it anyway.

My regulars know I'm completely ADD. I'm either going to wind up driving the needles I've dropped through my feet, or sewing my fingers to the machine. I can just see it now.

The problem is I need some curtains hemmed, and searching out a seamstress seems like a pain in the ass. I don't even know where I would find one. Besides the obvious - the phone book. The job is so small, it hardly worth any seamstresses time.

But - apparently, curtain manufacturers don't think customers need curtains thick enough to block out all visible light in the size I need. So I'm forced to hem.

Normally, I would just lop off the bottom of the curtains and call it a day. But I think I may want to wash these things. Which surely will result in them completely unraveling. Then I'll have to go through this whole process again. And I really.. really don't want to spend months shopping for simple non-hideous curtains again.

Women must think god awful designs are the greatest thing. Therefore torturing me, because I don't really need flowers on every piece of fabric in existence. I also don't need to feel like I'm having a grandmother flashback with the weird 1970's materials.

Now I'm digressing.

So to recap - I just want a simple sewing machine. I don't need 80 stitch patterns. That is just 80 patterns I'm going to sew into my hand.

The problem is.. most of the really simple ones are manufactured by Brother. Who I just blacklisted 2 months ago. I'm never buying anything from that company again.

I have a fax machine from them, which apparently will not work without the color ink cartridges. It won't even allow you to send a fax.

What pissed me off more is the machine stops working when the color cartridges still have a lot of ink left in them. To replace all my cartridges cost me 75 bucks. while buying a new low end Brother fax machine would have been 100 bucks.

So - long story long... Brother may have a sewing machine a little more my mentally challenged speed.. but I'm not going to give them my money.

So I'm asking for ideas from my readers. I know I have some readers who sew, and I'm positive they will give me some really good ideas. You guys always do.

3 comments:

  1. DUDE!
    http://www.thermoweb.com/cpd-lite.html

    It comes in different weights, so if you are using heavy material, it could still work pretty well. I use the flat sheets of it to set M. Sarge's uniform patches, and they hold up very well. For the curtains, I would recommend the tape style.

    I'm not sure if they still do it, but Ikea was including some with all of their curtains, so that customers could cut and "hem" them to their own desired lengths.

    If not, you can probably find a cheap $75-$100 machine at Target or Wally. Usually they are Brother, but sometimes there will be a sale on Singer. Neither of these are great choices, but for $75, meh.

    I am currently using a crap $100 Brother model, until I upgrade in the near future.

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  2. Oh yeah, and if you have a good local dry cleaner, they usually have a seamstress on staff.

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  3. Hey! I didn't even think about the dry-cleaner.

    I totally knew you'd come through for me.

    And we -are- separated at birth. You said "meh", and called me dude. In all caps I might add.

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