The Basics of Singer Sewing Machines

If someone asked you to name a brand of sewing machine, chances are you'd answer Singer. They're probably the best-known sewing machine brand in the entire industry. Singer sewing machines have been manufactured since 1851 using the highest quality standards. The zigzag stitch feature, now almost universally offered on sewing machines, was an innovation by Singer. They also developed and marketed the first electronic sewing machine.

It doesn't matter if you're interested in quilting, embroidery, home d?cor sewing or making your own clothes, there's a Singer sewing machine that can do the job. They're some of the most advanced machines in the world. It's no wonder Singer has been a household name for over 150 years.

Singer breaks their sewing machine range up into four main categories. For beginners, they have a basic machine. It's easy to use and economical, but it can also do more advanced jobs like buttonholes and utility stitching. Secondly, they have the Scholastic series. These are specifically designed for use in a teaching environment. For this reason they are practical and extremely durable.

The third group of machines belongs in the Quantum series. These are Singer's top quality machines. They incorporate a range of modern conveniences, including electronic mechanisms. The final category is the multi-featured series, which includes Singer's multi-featured machines. It's easy to see that Singer has a sewing machine to suit everyone's needs.

Purchasing a sewing machine is easy, as there are many places for you to look. Check out your local department store, the Internet and in catalogs. Most larger towns and cities have a sewing store, or at least a large craft store. Because Singers are known to be high quality and durable, you don't need to worry about what you're buying if you choose a used Singer sewing machine either.

It can be interesting to ask around and find out if one of the older members of your family still has an antique Singer. Recently these old sewing machines have become collector's items. There are even enthusiasts who collect antique Singer sewing machines as a full time hobby. If you find the serial number on the machine, you can call Singer and they will be able to identify the date the machine was manufactured. You can also look online, as there are websites that can help trace the serial number to an approximate manufacture date.

If you're interested in selling an antique Singer, then you can get in touch with people that specialize in appraising antique Singers. Whether you want to use it yourself or collect them as a hobby, Singer machines truly represent durability and quality.

Timothy Gorman is a successful Webmaster and publisher of Shopping For Sewing Machines.info where he provides more sewing machine advice, solutions and information on finding the best sewing machines that you can research in your pajamas on his website http://www.shoppingforsewingmachines.info

How to judge Chinese Suzhou Embroidery?

Chinese Suzhou embroidery is a traditional art which has a high requirement on hand skills. A piece of good Suzhou embroidery is a perfect combination of techniques and art, the quality of effect in the artwork becomes a criteria in judging Suzhou Embroidery. Normally we can tell from the following criteria.

1. To judge the concept of the whole picture, in present market, most of the concepts of pictures are similar, so we can tell creative embroidery form ordinary ones.

2. The fineness of the needlework: it plays the most important role in a picture. It should be very clear where the thread should be thick and where it should be thin, and they should hide the thread head and knot as well.

In order to make very fine embroidery, the thread must be divided into thinner ones. Splitting the silk thread is one of the traditional techniques of Chinese Suzhou embroidery, that means to divide the thread into several strands. Like half or a quarter of the original thickness, or even thinner. If you want to embroider the tail of golden fish, you should use very thin silk strands to express a sense of lightness and transparency. The silk strand used for the body of a fish should be thicker, giving people a sense of weight. If you want to embroider a stone, or a tree trunk, you must use thick thread, and a more random pattern. And for the stitching of a cat, a color change must be used for its fur, then the finished fur of the cat will be as vivid as real cat fur.

The last key point is that the needlework should be dense. The low quality embroidery is just printing the base picture, then matching it with several threads with similar color, and it will give people the impression of embroidery if you stand far away from the picture. But if you look at it carefully, you will find the pattern in the back.( Since the picture is printed, and after a period of time, the color of the ink will fade, it doesn't last long.) This kind of embroidery is fake.

An embroidery with high art value also has the base picture, but no matter how you check the picture, you will never find it on the base. The base picture has been covered by silk thread.( Good embroidery is usually made by hand. The procedure of Mechanical Graphing and manual graphing is different . Mechanical Graphing Computer jets the picture, then fixes it in the supporting frame. And because silk is quite flexible, it is easy to be deformed when fixed into the frame. But manual embroidery is different , it is fixed into a drawing frame first, then they embroider it. So it's impossible to deform. The high value embroidery does not only need the embroidering technique, but also they need the craftsmen knowledge of painting. Because there is no base picture , only a profile of the picture, for color they need the talent of the craftsman. So a good piece of Chinese Suzhou embroidery is not only imitation, but also includes the talent of the craftsman.

The disordered stitching embroidery has a special requirements on the thickness of thread, but also thread angle is critical. To use the color of the thread to show the bright and dark sides of the picture, they need the crafts man to have a deep understanding of the application of color.

3. The process of the artwork's color and art effect. That means the brightness and color should match well, and transition naturally. Such as an embroidered cat, the most difficult part is the pair of eyes. The craftsman needs more than twenty different colors to transition from one color to another, making the eyes alive and vivid. An embroidery with high value should have a beautiful pattern, fine needlework, elegant colors, and deep meaning.

This articles was written by Susan Yip, the co-owner of Su Embroidery Art Studio which offers silk paintings entirely hand embroidered. For more articles on Chinese silk embroidery, please visit http://www.suembroidery.com