Apparel City Sewing Machine Co

I left the machine with them. One week later I got a call back. Returned to pick up the machine. It runs better and I'm happier. $70. They don't have a parking lot, but street parking is fine if you're lucky or not too bad if you don't mind lugging your machine one block. Take quarters for the meters. I was in-and-out each time in under 10 minutes.

I started a big sewing project after several years of not using my machine. It is a top of the line Bernina 930 bought about 30 years ago. I had two choices of where to take my machine: the Sunset sewing center, five minutes away and in my neighborhood or Apparel City, 30 minutes away and downtown. A few years ago, I used the Sunset Sewing Center to repair my serger which I used to make swim suits. They charged $100 and never explained to me what they did. So, I was frustrated with them, even though my serger worked fine after their work, and they are probably an okay company. I called Apparel City just to do a tune up and they told me their base price was $75 (way under Sunset's at $100) After talking to the guy, he basically told me I could tune up the machine myself. I thought that was very nice, not trying to get business. Then after sewing for awhile, the machine would stop and start up again when I turned the hand wheel, so I knew something was wrong. I was worried about taking my precious machine to someone, but I realized after consulting sewing machine websites that I could ruin it if I continued using it. I looked up sewing machine repair on Angies list and Yelp and both Sunset and Apparel City were listed. I decided to go with Apparel City even though it meant a trip downtown, and I was worried about parking, and my machine was heavy. The Sunset place was five minutes away, so it was a tough decision. It turned out parking was easy at Apparel City. What pleased me most was that when I picked up the machine, they gave me the part that had failed, and they explained that they put in a new part. By the way, I left a detailed written explanation of the issues I was having, and they made a check list of it, and gave it back to me. They returned my machine in a week like they said they would.

After not sewing for some years, I took a class at Canada College in the Fashion Department. When my serger stopped working due to a misaligned looper, a classmate recommended I take the serger (a Singer 14u85 purchased in 1990) to Apparel City in San Francisco. After talking to Nelson Lai, the proprietor, I also brought in a Simplicity BH600 (same as Babylock BL101) blind hemmer that was not working and my trusty Viking 6690 sewing machine that needed a cleaning and tune-up. The repair rate is $55 an hour (July 2011), and I was told that if the work for any of the machines did not take the full first hour, they would work on the next. The combined bill for the serger and sewing machine was $55 (ready in a few days), and for the blind hemmer (ready a few days later) was $55. All machines run fine now. I was worried about parking, but not only was street parking available but the owner pre-arranged during our telephone call for me to park in the store's loading bay around the corner in the alley and helped bring in the three machines. The store repairs sewing equipment for the apparel companies south of Market, sells high end sewing machines, and also displays and sells thread and notions. The work was professionally done and the rates were very reasonable to repair/tune up my three machines. In contrast I had been quoted $110 as the starting rate to repair just the serger by a mid-peninsula repair place, with an estimated one week turnaround time. I was trying to get the serger repaired to continue work for my class, and I did not get further estimates for the other machines until I found out about and talked to Apparel City. I'm delighted to have all three machines working well. A perfectly formed stitch is a beautiful thing.