Embellisher/felter machines

Hi Sunny, I have a Viking machine. I believe it retails for $300.00. Here is a site that offers a comparrison on the various machines.

The only machine I would stay away from would be the Janome because you have to replace the whole needle unit rather than individual needles. Janome is now selling a unit so you can relplace individual needles, but it's at an additional cost-$35.00 if I recall correctly. I'd rather spend my money on wool, thanks.

Remember that just like your sewing machine, you may need your Embellisher to be serviced from time to time. What kind of service will you recieve from the online company?

A last word of advice......buy extra needles, you may break some as you learn to use your machine.

I bought the Babylock and LOVE it!! It is very sturdy and comes with extra needles. Remember-sew fast and move slow.......anything you do that could possibly bend a needle is wrong...........

I paid a little over 300 buckaroos........it was on sale. Wool roving is cheap at Hobby Lobby. I have tried it on regular poly felt, sweatshirt fleece, cotton, polar fleece, and wool blend and it goes like a champ. I would not be one bit afraid to buy the Babylock on the internet. There is little that can go wrong with them except needles.

A girlfriend of mine bought a Babylock last week for $299. IIRC, it came with a video, extra needles, and a couple of other doodads.

I have looked at these machines. And thought that it was quite a bit of money for something that is not necessarily a big part of what I want to do. Last year in Houston I took a class from Barbara Crawford (?) on hand needle felting. I love it. She talked about the machines, and has used them. But she feels that they are almost too "rough". She has an adapter kit to use with an old regular machine. The adapter kit has the instructions to remove the feed dog/bobbin "guts" of the machine and uses a "felting base" (special type of foam that holds up well and is the right density) inserted there. The needle bar is also adapted to hold several felting needles. She said that the converted machines are not quite as "rough" as the felting only machines, and are a little easier to control. As well as being a lot less expensive. (Lets face it, you can find machines that need new feed gears and such for a lot lower price, or any old cheapy machine for that matter.... often you can find them for free or almost free.) The converter kit was about $60 if I remember correctly. That is quite a savings.... and you could then spend the money on some roving and other embellishment stuff. If you decide after all of this that you really do want one of the specialty machines, I'll bet there will be a bunch of them for sale in the next few years.

Maybe I am just cheap, but I can't bring myself to spend that much money on a machine that I might just use a few times and never again. Would rather spend it on other things.....like chocolate and fabric and thread and........

Pati, in Phx

Sunny wrote:

Pati, do you have information on how to contact this person? I might be very interested in buying a converter as a first step.

Sunny