Random Lesson

One of my students was hand sewing, even though she has a sewing machine.  " I hate it" she told me - "the tension is rubbish, I wish I'd never bought it". I suggested she bring the machine in and I'd help her love it. (There speaks the voice of confidence!)

Well, in it came, and I went to show her how to thread it . . . and stopped!  You know the "back-on-itself" / tension bit in the bobbin compartment - well it wasn't there, nothing , just a smooth compartment

We agreed I would take it and let her know when I'd solved it.  Husband looked at it for me, and was equally stumped. No back-on-itself bit meant no tension, so the stitches were rubbish.

She hadn't brought the book of words, so we checked lots of chat rooms and forums and they were mostly very critical of the machine, especially the threading of it - so no help for us!  The manufacturers kindly emailed me an instruction book, and one tiny sentence stood out as strange - you should only use metal bobbins.  Strange because nearly all machines use plastic these days, and very strange given that the "goodie bag" she got with it had PLASTIC bobbins in!  

Anyway we decided to try a metal one just to eliminate that issue - and it worked! Astonishingly, the ring in the base of the bobbin compartment is magnetic, and that provides the bobbin tension.

From despairing with it, and agreeing with the critical reviews, I have now fallen in love with  the Beldray 12 stitch mini. A great starter/lesson machine, with choice of foot pedal or start/stop button, it's lightweight and comes with a carry bag - shame it comes with rubbish instructions and a confusing, misleading goodie bag  

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