After a busy work week, and a work emergency on the weekend, I finally managed to unbox my new Juki and get acquainted with its features.
I also finally finished my yellow shirt, which seemingly had every imaginable obstacle trying to keep me from completing it – including the lack of a button sewing foot as a standard accessory with the F600. It has an elaborate, electronic buttonhole foot (see the video below) but no way to attach a button out of the box. So I used my Brother to do the button attachment – one of the things it’s still capable of doing.
The shirt will feature in a future article. For now, I’ve shot some videos of my favorite features of the F600, starting with an unboxing video. Enjoy.
All of the videos were shot with the GoPro HERO4 action camera, and the GoPro 3-Way mount, and were (lightly) edited in GoPro Studio software. It turns out an extreme sports action camera works well for shooting sewing videos.
Unboxing
People can have unboxing videos for their iPads and smartwatches, so why not an unboxing video for a sewing machine? Why not, indeed.
Straight Stitches, Zigzag and the Knee Lift
Basic sewing, and some of the machine controls.
The Bobbin Winder
Wherein I demonstrate, and troubleshoot, the bobbin winder feature. After shooting this video, I learned the machine does come with a smaller thread spool cap, so I needn’t have borrowed the cap from my Brother machine.
The Wide Table Accessory
Which is even bigger than the one I have for my Brother. One thing I failed to mention in the video is that the table doesn’t have any sort of latch mechanism to physically attach the table to the machine – it just fits next to it on your work surface.
Buttonholes
I start working on the buttonholes I couldn’t complete with my old machine. The buttonhole foot on this machine is pretty special. I didn’t even demonstrate the 16 different buttonhole styles the machine supports, including a 2-step manual buttonhole I haven’t figured out how to do yet.
Next Time
Let’s take this bad boy out for a spin. And I’ll show you the yellow summer shirt.
Looks like a great machine. Love getting new things. happy stitching
This machine looks like you’ll have so much fun getting to know. Just wanted to say, sewing since the 70’s and never used a button foot to attach by machine. Using just a regular zigzag perched upon the button, adjust to correct zig zag width and slowly or even hand crank into the button holes. It’s still faster than sewing by hand or switching machines and has worked for me a few thousand times and mom before me.
Heh, call me spoiled! I looked in one of my sewing books, and it suggested using the standard zigzag foot with a toothpick taped in the middle to create the thread shank. I probably would have given that a try, but I had my old sewing machine available with its special foot, so I used that instead.
Loved the videos. It felt like getting a new machine getting to see it come out of the box and the tests you put it through. I really liked seeing the way the buttonhole foot and plug in worked. Do let us know if it makes 100 % consistent buttonholes after you used it a while. A couple of the modern ones here if the foot gets the slightest nudge from a seam allowance or putting it in place ,I get an oops . I have one machine here that never fails me with a nice buttonhole in the exact spot I want it. Hopefully it will last as long as I do but I am always interested in the buttonhole feature on modern machines and how they perform so thanks for the unboxing and especially the buttonhole video. Happy sewing with the new toy.
Thank you! I definitely intend to report back after I’ve had more experience producing buttonholes on the machine, especially with problem situations like the waistband on jeans.
I enjoyed your videos so much, I stopped at a sewing store today to try new machines. The sales person was pressing the Bernina on me, but $5,800 is a tad more than I want to spend for a sewing machine. LOL I’ll have to look at JUKIs.
Just ordered this machine – look forward to hearing what you think of it as you bond together!
I’ve written a little bit about my experience with the machine so far, but I’ve been engaged in a long fitting project and I haven’t done much with the machine other than sew muslins. It has been great to work with so far, though. I have another project on the horizon that should be a real test for the machine. I’ll be doing a followup review at some point, too.