LET'S TALK ABOUT SEWING MACHINES with Bernina Jeff

[Music] i started this series because i'm a curious person i have so many questions and i like to search out people that have the answers so i'm just delighted to share with you a fellow youtuber bernina jeff from his store in grand junction colorado he has so many tips to help you get the most out of your machine and it doesn't need to be at bernina we talk about his beginnings in the family garment business to how he pivoted his business during the covid crisis so grab your sewing and a cup of tea and here's my interview with bernina jeff [Music] i found you on youtube about four months ago bernina jeff and i'm amazed at how many tricks and just little things that you have that have made my life easier dealing with my machine but first i want to start back at the beginning and just talk to you about how did you get started in quilting like are you a quilter yourself or how did you get involved with the shop well i basically grew up with it um and when i was six years old mom handed me a seam ripper and said take the labels out of these jackets so we can sell them so that was back in 1965. so i've been involved in this business since uh you know a long long time and they evolved from roman women's right to wear into fabrics in the 70s and then in 2006 we started bringing in sewing machines so that's been my passion in the last 15 years is the sewing aspect of with the machines your store's name is high fashion yes back in 65 there was a big convention every year in paris it was called high fashion hi fashion so we were the first discount ready-to-wear place in grand junction colorado this would be four malls and everything else so mom and dad would buy truckloads of jackets and see where and ladies clothing and you know pedal it down like a big box store does now and when did you move into the repair and like the getting to know the insides of the machine we always had really good sewing dealers in town so we stayed out of the sewing machine business until they all retired so in 2006 uh the bernina dealership retired so that's when i picked up that dealership and being a you know backyard engineer i just love tinkering my dad said at 12 years old i can fix anything you know i can take it apart you know who needs a manual just put it back together and make it work and since then i've just you know evolved that those skills and applied them towards sewing machines and do you quilt yourself i've quilted a block or two my my passion is more art so i have done thread painting so i've taken free motion quilting and put uh 30 hours of thread on a project made it look like a picture so that's that's kind of my forte and was your mother a quilter she was a garment sewer she tarted she started two quilts and she got a few blocks of them done but she could see a garment and that's where uh the business really thrived is through the 70s and 80s she was you know selling garment goods and i started the business in 1983 full time before then i was a cpa for five years so i have a really good background in the uh financial aspect of the company and so i started and she was my mentor until she she worked in the store until she was 85 wow mentored me and we uh we built this business from you know small little mom and pop shop we had at one time eighteen thousand square foot store nothing but fabric no machines or anything it became a human resource i became the hr person i didn't like it so i downsized to a little 3 000 square foot store with sewing machines and eight staff instead of 25 stacks so did you get into mixing colors and fabrics together or were you always more along the supply chain my mom and i we would go all over the country looking for fabric we were if you ever seen american pickers we were the mike and frank of fabric we would go to dallas we would go to new york we would go anywhere to find fabrics to bring into our store so that was when you say bringing colors bring in things that was you know we've been dealing with colors and fashion well i have been since the 80s so you know now when you're dealing with uh quilting goods it's almost all done for you now i mean it's just a matter what your taste is you know a rep comes in and you want to buy fabric lines from that particular company you have everything from traditional to you know modern to you know 30s so it's just a matter of what your taste is and that's why every quilt shop is so different it's a matter of personality and who owns the shop because there are literally millions of choices every season for the fabrics that you want to bring into your shop that's just so fascinating you must have seen so many changes in fabric designs and colors and the waves of things coming through i remember my mom said i don't know how we're ever going to sell quilting cotton eight dollars a yard there's just no way anybody's gonna pay eight dollars a yard for 45 inch cotton and now you would have a stampede to your door for that phrase yes exactly so do you remember those bright neon colors coming through i think that was the late 80s in the early 90s was that a big change there was so much dye and stuff and they were like cardboard you know they felt like paper some of those fabrics you know they're not fabrics today are so much softer so much processed and you know they're designed for the quilter to be able to use right off of the boat back in the 80s and some in the 70s the fabric was so stiff i remember come some of the fabric coming out of cranston out of united states made and i would unpack it my arms would actually break out from all the formaldehyde in the fabric so you know i always thought i always joked that that's my mom lived to be 99 years old she just passed away last year and i've always joked that that preserved her all that uh formaldehyde and what we were selling you know gave her a longer preservation but uh yeah it was the fabrics of today are so much better processed they're so much better you know you have high-end designers you have designers from all over every industry making fabric lines for every genre of quilter so it's it's a whole different process i mean i remember my mom and i back in the 80s we'd have to go to five different vendors to find the colors that all work together to bring in a group so when did you start working on machines like was it right from the very beginning like bringing in machines from other people to repair and service well we had sewing machines in the uh classroom we have the fabric store so i would tinker with those and make them make sure they work and i would buy parts from you know vendors here but in 2006 is when you know we became a bernina dealership and a few years later a baby lock dealership and a year later a janome dealership and we also had handy filters and through the requirements of those dealerships you have to go to technical school you have to go to sales school you have to go to business school from all those companies so that's where we i learned professionally but you know before then i was changing gears and stuff in bernina's you know just off the cuff and then through all that experimentation that's and listening to customers that's where i have figured out you know how to get this regina jeff and my other little motto is keep on sewing because that's what i want the gals to do and the guys because you know with the pandemic and if you're out many of my customers and my subscribers are three to four hours away from a dealership and then they drive their machine in a dealership is going to be two months before they get back to it so i want to try to keep them sewing with what they have well you've got a great channel you've got all sorts of good little tips and tricks just even in the threading of the machine you say to hang on to that thread with your right hand to hear that click click click click and i started threading my machine that way and i couldn't believe how much better results were on a consistent basis i also put that little clip on the back to stop the thread from jumping around my spool which is a big problem that i have all the time little things just ingenious i get a lot of questions from people asking about machines and i make a point not to answer them but i think you can answer some of them i'm going to ask you if a person is a budget conscious sewer what should that person look for in a new machine well i always start the interview process with size do you need size to the right of the needle because every inch to the right of the needle cost a thousand or two thousand dollars so if you want a 10 inch wide machine it's going to be eight or ten thousand dollars so you know that's not in everybody's budget so what i ask is how much size do you need and how thick of projects are you doing because you know there's brands of machines out there that sew fine through two and three and four layers of fabric but if you start sewing bags the buy annie bags and things like that you're sewing through zippers and you're throwing you know that's that's a you know a quilty project anymore with some of these bags so if you're just sewing a couple layers of fabric and you're going to have the quilt um long arm bladers then almost any machine even some of the brother machines will do just fine so it's just it's just a matter of getting a front of the machine hopefully go to a dealership or go someplace where you can actually test it with the fabrics you're going to be using i love the customer comes in with the project in their hand and saying well this machine sew this so i even put their thread in there and their project and have them sit down for another machine and see is this performing what you expected to do when is the best time for someone to upgrade their machine there's a lot of fomo a lot of people think that they should be getting what their the sewer next to them has but when should somebody upgrade well i wouldn't upgrade right before i go to a retreat or don't go to a class because you're going to be sitting in the front of the machine that you have no idea what's going to do and you're going to be frustrated because everybody else is getting their project done and you're still trying to learn the machine it's like buying a new pair of hiking boots and going on a 20-mile hike you need to break in first so plan ahead if you're going to go someplace special on retreat or a class get a machine and get trained on it for three or four months before that happens just any time you think that the machine's not performing you don't have enough room you don't have enough light you can't thread the needle anymore it's just you know it's just you're spending more time fixing the machine than sewing it it's time to look into a new machine or new to you it doesn't have to be a brand new machine there's a lot of dealers that go through trade-in machines that are wonderful values you know i get bernina's here that are only four or five years old and they're a third of the price of new and like me i stand behind a machine for 12 months you know if even if the computer blows up within that 12 months i'll make it right with it i have a bernina 910 that i bought when i was i think i was 19 and my mother told me to buy quality it'll last you forever and there's still times when i prefer it over my brand new 750. yes and we love these you know they're not vintage they're they're just a really good you know machine those the nine series of bernina's the 830 series are really nice machines and they're mechanical there's nothing uh computerized that's going to go out on them so you know those those are excellent machines and all you need to do is flip the top and oil it and that's where my videos come in here do you work on many featherweights oh yeah i just got a white one that i purchased for myself you know that minty white colored one and a gal came in the store years ago and came in with a 19 well it was a birth year of my wife's so i had to buy it and that's it's in our house and our house is all decorated with uh primitives and antiques so it works really well we even had on february 14th valentine's day years ago we had uh bring your featherweight we had a whole event on featherweights and one gal in the valley had 14 of them what's your position on uh painting them is that a good thing or you don't care i had a gal bring me a cherry red one once you know it it's just what you love i mean yeah they're they're meant to sew a billion stitches so they'll last and last and last can you give us a couple of tips on what we need to do to keep our machine running well never use canned air on your machines because canned air just blows the dust inside and really dries out the oils that are inside so that's something i highly you know discourage i would just make sure that you keep the bobbin area clean and if you have a vacuum attachment that works great in there you know just dust it out i also recommend that you change the needle after you know every six to eight hours of sewing when a needle gets dull you know it's making the machine work harder because it's not nice and sharp needles are only 50 cents to a dollar each and match the needle to your project that's that's the other thing and i would recommend that not every six months or every year but have your machine maintained on a regular basis just like changing the oil in your car if you're never changing on your car i had a gal bring me uh a 931 and it's made in 1986 his first time has ever seen a dealer never it's never had you know she doesn't do a lot of sewing and it started finally after 1986 it's just finally started making some noise so that's how well engineered that was at bernina so you know i'd recommend every at least two to five years bring your machine in to have it maintained professionally with a reputable service servicemen and when we bring that in for that annual servicing what do you do i know you clean it out but what are the other things that you do on the newer machines they all have plastic covers with insides all metal frames so we take every single cover off i text go through a few hundred q-tips a day because they take all the old oil and the grimy stuff out we also take it to an air compressor with 100 pounds of pressure and blow anything out that might have accumulated with the lint and the dirt and stuff out and it's amazing after you've used that air compressor to the inside of the machine it looks like it came from the factory again it just is amazing how good it looks and inside a machine there might be anywhere from five to a hundred wire connections that we have to take apart and then put back in with the new modern ones the older mechanical ones the big deal is getting the oil that has turned a varnish out we use special solvents and stuff to get the varnished oil out and then replace it with the correct oil and the correct lubrications so a machine can take anywhere from hour to two and a half hours to maintain and how often is the timing something that you need to deal with well timing it's kind of brand and model specific some models bounce out of time fairly easy some don't so it's one of those events if you're sewing along you hit a metal zipper and you have a pretty good size needle and that might knock the timing off you know your timings off as when you turn the hand wheel on your machine and the needle hits something underneath always check with the new needle first before your needle might be bent just a little bit and it hits so put a new needle in rotate the hand wheel if it hits underneath by the bobbin area something's off or if it's just skipping if you're sewing along and the same thread and fabric has been sewing fine and all of a sudden your zigzag skips on one side that's usually a timing issue what is the best way to transport your machine i hear you know the new electronic machines are a little bit sensitive i think my old bernina could handle anything but they worry about you know just jostling it around what's a good way to transport your machine that is a very good question because i get machines in here and the power cord is still plugged in they have a usb stick plugged into the side and all those things you really need to remove anything that's plugged into your machine and you want to lower the presser foot and you want to lower the needle all the way into the press into the plate because that lowers the take-up lever which on some of the old machines is exposed and that take-up lever gets bumped during um transport it can break apart you know so anything that's attached to your machine you know make sure it's it's unplugged and wrap those up nicely and put them in a bag to the side or put them in the cover or whatever else also if you're putting the machine in the back seat put a seat belt around it you have no idea if a child is going to run in front of you and you have to slam on the brakes and that machine goes flying across the back of your your trunk or anything else so you know watch just think of it being like a child you want to protect it and if you have the uh wheeled carrying carts i go to walmart and i buy a little travel pillow and i put a travel pillow between the front of the machine and the travel case and strap that in because that pillow is going to absorb anything that might hit the knobs it might hit the screen that sort of thing so i've got a lot of viewers who live miles and miles like you talked about people being four hours away from a dealer how do they find i personally think the dealer is key with the machine because you develop a relationship with your dealer you know you want to be able to call them if you've got a problem you want confidence that when you send it in it's going to get repaired and as your channel shows there's all sorts of little tricks that you don't know about that you're relying on your dealer for so what do you look for in a dealer how far how far away should they be and what are good services that they offer well you know social media helps a lot right now i mean you might just put it out there on facebook you know i live in new hampshire anybody got a good deal out there you know and you know your friends i mean the it's it's what you just have to check with because you're not just buying a soda machine now you're buying the dealership because you got to buy the dealership because the the machines even the you know the older ones they need tlc occasionally so you want to do some checking and the trouble with a lot of the brands of machines is they are so specific because you don't unless you're a bonino dealership you can't get burning the parts you know i get people coming in here for coffin viking machines that are only a few years old but i can't get the parts i can get normal things like bobbin cases and things like that but i can't get a computer board i can't get things like that and our nearest viking and faf dealership is 300 miles away so you know a lot of people have jumped shipped from that brand and come to the brands that i have because they know that they can you know get support and it is it's a lot of support um you just kind of have to do your research you know if you have a choice of going east or west north or south find the dealership that's been around and you know one or two bad marks on social media is not not a bad thing it's almost better than seeing a perfect score but you don't want to see 50 really poor ratings and only one or two good ones so you just you just kind of have to feel it out we used to be in the appliance industry my husband and i and our techs would go on the road and unfortunately the way of reviews is that it's the angry people the dissatisfied people that lead to the reviews that the happy ones the ones that you save their dinner party of a hundred people uh for they they rarely make the reviews the other really big issue for all sewers why is tension so scary i think it's it's a process of being educated on it you know it's you were told well i hear it all the time you know i was in helmet class and i was told never to touch that dial never to touch that screw on the bobbin case never never never and they were never explained what tension is and you know lower tension there has to be a drag on the bobbin case you know a little bit of a drag and i have a video on different things that you can attach to your bobbin so you can tell if you have enough tension on it and the upper tension needs to be between eight and ten times that amount of tension so as you're pushing your or threading your machine when the presser foots up it should be nice and smooth and when you lower the presser foot it should be enough to almost tweak the needle or bend the needle that's how much upper tension there has to be on a sewing machine for it to sew correctly so it's a matter of education um i even have maybe it'll be a good video for me to do i even have some uh props i took two pie tins and put them together with the spring to show how the thread has to go through them to create the proper tension and having it in a large you know prop it really helps my customers hear of you have to get that thread through the upper tension otherwise it won't sell my very first interview on this series was with a woman by the name of anita zobins and she used to have a thread bar workshop where you just practiced you just sat down with three layers of fabric while batting in the middle and you sewed a straight line and you played with the dial as you were sewing that line so you could see what actually happened to your thread and then she made you mark down with a pen okay this is at plus four this is at minus one so you had a reference to go back to all the time that was a really good really good tip how has the events the past two years made you pivot as a dealer well exactly the pivot was a good word because when i saw this coming i got involved with the local hospital and i knew i had a bunch of sewing people and they provided me with special uh splash proof material and we were we made 30 to 40 000 masks in a month for the hospitals and everything around the area out of this special family we had designated areas i had volunteers come in that cut the kits we put the kits in bags of ten with the elastic with the nose pieces and the fabric i put a youtube out there on how to sew it and we put them out the front door and i had a line of people waiting to grab these kits that was all the way around my parking lot so they had two or three days to sew the kits and bring them back so within a month we did 30 000 masks and then we went from just the uh protection mask to the fabric masks and um being doing this i was a essential place so i could stay open and people were bringing their sewing machines that hadn't been cranked up for 20 years and we were i was almost doing repairs on the parking lot i was doing on the spot okay i'm going to get you sewing i'm going to show you how to get your tensions right you had your needle in backwards okay you're ready to go so mass now and we were doing almost 200 machines a month to get them going so it was you know we never missed a beat financially or never had a employee off excellent and i see that that's really when your channel your youtube channel started too you've done a lot in the last year yep and that you know being as though that you know customers couldn't come in as easy so that's i said you know there's there's a need out there for the uh the followers and subscribers to have help on their machines without having to come in so it was it was perfect timing you have a couple of items that i didn't know that were available your website one was the the little the the needle holder because i have big beady fingers um that looks like a little good little device what else do you have you've got the the tweezers you got the oiler i started oiling around the hook assembly and i can't not believe the difference in sound of my machine that that makes like it's really nice and purring now that i'm doing that needs it about every two hours of selling doesn't it you can almost hear it in a while and and that's just the way the machine was engineered on the seven series um yeah i i have actually a shopify account now so you can go to bernina jeff.myshopify.com and my 14 or 18 favorite gadgets are on there and you can just pay right there and then it can be filled and then we love chatting with our customers i mean i'm sending the uh poor mailman has to come with a bucket every day now i mean it's we went from selling one or two items a week on you know mailing out to 50 to 100 almost a day so it's been a whole different challenge as far as i never thought i'd be you know online sale seller but it's it's really opened up a whole nother audience for me so have you passed your love of fabric and sewing onto other family members no not even my daughter wants to get into the business she worked her way through college and and uh my wife works at home and pays the bills and stuff he doesn't uh you know hang out at the store but uh my passion for this you know somebody once said we need to put a usb stick in your ear and drain your brain so it's available for people so this is what i'm doing with the youtubes is i'm trying to record my expertise and knowledge so it can be out there for people that want to sew and keep their sewing machines running and not always have to drag it in every 10 minutes so if people want to get a hold of you how do they find you well i have a website for my store but it's mostly just information um for ordering uh we take phone calls we're even shipping to canada now at 970-256 mountain standard time we open at 9 30. so again we're pretty much an extra employee just handling the phones and shipping so it's been been a good little you know i'm hiring more people and i don't know if you've seen my uh youtube lately but i have a brand new invention now i invented a product that a lot of quilters love using rulers and templates but if you have a stitch regulator you can't use that device to use templates because it's on top well i invented a way that it attaches to the bottom of a so steady table with an extra connection and it just released this monday so it's only been out four days and it has taken the whole nation by storm my last youtube picked up 14 000 views in three days wow so it's it's been it's been huge and so steady is out of eugene oregon so it's a u.s company it's one of the few boxes that i get in the store that says made in usa you know it just makes me feel good so the stitch regulator i know mine is like it has a very flat foot on it and i can't use a ruler up against it otherwise well i'll damage my machine so this attaches to the table instead it's just to the underside of the table and the camera points upward and then you slide your quilt over that camera and it reads the quilt motion so it makes all your stitches regulated around temperature i'm gonna go watch the video thank you so much for being on the show today this has been wonderful one day when we can travel we can get together and have a coffee no i'm even thinking of doing a bernina jeff retreat next may in may 2022 okay rvs and just come and have three or four days with bernina jeff and learn their machines okay we're organizing that as we speak sounds like a plan what i want to challenge from you is have your viewers or yourself send me ideas of what's really frustrating and that maybe i can do a really good youtube video on and help them out because i just need ideas i can feel content if i get good ideas of what they really want you may have your inbox full very quickly it's a start you know if i don't know what people need i can't provide it and um you know be careful what you ask for so i'm being i may have just asked more than bite off but anyway i'll do what i can that's great that's absolutely fantastic again thank you so much for being on the show and i'll see you next summer all right thanks [Music] i hope you enjoyed my interview with bernina jeff i don't have an rv but i'm very interested in signing up for his boot camp next year if you are too be sure to sign up for his newsletter i'll have his contact info his youtube channel and of course a link to a store in the notes below next up on karen's quilt circle is barbara brackman author of encyclopedia of pieced quilt patterns and we are talking about one of my favorite subjects the history of quilting be sure to subscribe so you'll be notified when it goes live i have interviewed so many amazing people this past year check out the playlist below in case you missed one i have been taking a mental health break so there hasn't been a regular video for a couple of weeks i've been getting caught up on some projects and preparing for others i did have a q a on the weekend so if you missed it i'll leave a link to that as well if you like this video please give it a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe and hit that bell by the subscribe button so that youtube will notify you when i make new videos you can also find me on facebook instagram and pinterest at jessica to done quilts and of course my website at jessicadenquilts.com so take care and i'll see you next time

Channel: Just Get it Done Quilts

Views: 32,724

Rating: 4.9640412 out of 5

Keywords: quilting, karen brown, just get it done quilts, quilting tutorial, beginner quilting, fast and easy, diy

Id: 6gfFJ8IGKOQ

Length: 31min 31sec (1891 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 07 2021