If you have gotten to know me, you know I love antique malls and flea markets – and auctions. A recent local estate auction offered a couple of vintage sewing machines and lots of fabric. I was lucky enough to get this 1970 era Bernina 830 Record! I did not know much about it, but have since learned it is one of the best sewing machines ever made. Many are still in use today. I found a great “Vintage Bernina” Facebook group that has been quite helpful.
My purchase included the red case, the extension table, the power / foot pedal cord, the knee lift, a couple of bobbins and quite a few presser feet. However the foot pedal itself was missing, as was the manual. So I purchased a low-end aftermarket foot pedal from Sewing Parts Online, and I downloaded for free the out-of-print manual from Bernina.
After routine maintenance done by my local Bernina dealer, she was good to go! I am not always the best at trying something new, so I forced myself to use it. My hope is that it will be a good travel machine, for quilt retreats, etc. I familiarized myself with the basics, and look what I created!
The center is a kit I purchased from Sewing The Good Life. The owners were one of the vendors at a local quilt show. These kits are great, containing a soft gridded fabric, pearl cotton and a needle – no hoop is needed. The design is preprinted. Their samples were displayed in pretty wooden frames. But I wanted to turn mine into a wall hanging.
My new-to-me Bernina does a nice 1/4″ stitch for piecing. I also used it to do some straight line quilting, and for attaching the binding to the front. I decided to use my Babylock Ellisimo Gold for some simple free motion quilting, but I did try out the darning / free motion foot that came with the Bernina. With some practice, it will do some nice free motion quilting too!
If you are interested in turning an embroidery into a wall hanging, and don’t want to do the math, I put together a simple pattern. This pattern could be modified to fit any size embroidery. To view or print the free pattern, click here.