Ruffled Cuffs

My sewing machine came with a ruffler. It’s an alien looking gizmatch but I believe it to be the /coolest thing evar/. At least, when it’s in operation. The day I figured it out I made rather a lot of ruffles-

-and I’m still finding the silly things in my bed. It’s quite ridiculous.

This is the attachment and a sample ruffle.

But I haven’t really done anything yet. I’ve just spent a day being gleeful. *puts glee to use*

Button Holes

So I made these spats and silly me doesn’t have a button hole attachment and Mum is making a quilt so I can’t use her machine to make button holes until she is done. Foo. Something must be done about this. Ebay! Ebay has stuff! I get my father to make a bid (and consequently buy) for me a buttonholer. And a box is sent in the mail to me. And then Mum asks my Aunt Mary if the treadle machine has any attachments in it’s draws, and it does, and a box comes in the mail. I like getting boxes in the mail.

The buttonholer doesn’t work. :0! What now? Take everything apart, of course!

Warning: Protect your work surface and your clothes. This will get oil and grease everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE.

Symptoms: The needle only catches a few of the stitches but the buttonholer works perfectly otherwise.

Diagnosis: The hook isn’t catching the thread.

Prescription: Move the hook closer to the needle by moving the whole bobbin race towards the needle a hair. Or, in my case, 15 thousandths of and inch.

In order, the throat plate and the bobbin race are removed and then the counterweight and the drive gear at the other end of the shaft are loosened so that they side. Note the relation of the counterweight to the bobbin race before taking it all apart. You may also have to clean the schmutz off the drive shaft. (and oil it too!)

Now, drop the shaft back in, and slide the bobbin race back into place. Peer into the bobbin race (from the front of the machine is pretty good) with a flashlight and turn the bobbin race by hand to see where the hook (the finger that snatches the thread off the needle to make a stitch) comes in relation to the needle. The needle has a little divot above the eye where the hook should come through. The needle side of the hook should be in line with where the edge of the needle would be if the divot wasn’t there.

This picture is from the side, showing where the hook should be in relation to the needle when the needle is just starting to come up. There is a quiz on this later.

If the bobbin race can’t be moved far enough to make that happen, the bushing that the bobbin race spins against must be moved. There are two options- hit it, or assemble a drawbar to pull it into place. Hitting it is really attractive because it requires so little set up and is so quick. Don’t do it! You can’t control how far the shock will move the bushing (and you can’t move it back if it goes too far) and you’re hitting the bearing surface. The drawbar sounds like work in comparison but all you need is a bolt, a socket wrench head that fits over the end of the bushing to rest on the machine, tape, a nut a washer, and a small bushing (or another washer) to bear against the big bushing. The bolt should fit through the bushing, the socket head, the nut, and the washer. The nut should fit the bolt. You will also need a wrench for the nut and an implement to hold the bolt (screwdriver, wrench, whatever depending on the kind of bolt.)

Assemble the parts thisly, with the tape over the threads of the bolt to prevent scratches inside the big bushing. The socket head is a 7/16ths inch.

Put the drawbar through the big bushing with the nut and sock head on the inside of the machine. Make everything finger tight. Mark the nut so you can tell how far you’ve turned it. Turn the nut until you feel it get tight- the distance between fingertightness and the bushing moving. Now turn the nut about three faces. Make sure that the set screw on the bushing has been loosened. Take the drawbar out, put the bobbin race back in, check to see if the hook is in the right spot. If the hook hits the needle, but the drawbar in the other way, and turn the nut half as far as you did the last time. If it’s too far away, reassemble the same way, repeat. When it’s right, put everything together, and it will work.

I did indeed run around the house screaming when everything worked.

Watchpocket

…because I can :D

I designed and added this pocket after I made the vest. It would have been much easier to make if I had known when I made the vest.

These are the patterns I used to make the pocket.

The one on the top left if the intricately folded model I used to make the pattern below it. I cut the fabric from the lower left one. The one on the right, once trimmed of its faux-pocket, become the pattern for the flap.

The pocket fits under the flap of the bigger pocket to hide horrible stitchery.

And the watch in the pocket. It has its own flap to keep the watch in- it fell out several times during Cabin Fever when I had the pocket without the flap- and to further hide my bad stitchery.

So much of my stitchery is bad on this because I had to try really hard to not sew the big pocket shut by contorting the vest, which made it difficult to sew in a straight line.

Needles

aand now that I have your attention….

Mom found me some Old Singer Needles for my sewing machine in a box somewhere. It’ll be a grand and glorious day when I actually get to use them. I look forward to it.

note the made in West Germany on the back of the envelope. Dating, anyone?

Skull Shirt

…the things I have to do to get clothing with skulls…

I had a whole epic explanation written up and then I read it and it sucked, so have a couple lists.

What I did:

• request striped shirts from mom.
• I got a nonstriped navy shirt with truly horrific flowers on the sleeves and chest. They had to go.
• I cut the sleeves off and the flower on the front out
• I cut a patch out of a contrasting fabric and sewed it in under the hole.
• The patch needed something on it. Went to the internet, printed out a pattern
• Pinned the pattern to the patch, stitched over the pattern, tore the pattern off
• also tore some of the stitching out, despite my careful knot tying
• When I wore the shirt to school and people loved it so I decided to salvage it.
• Quilting has a technique called free motion that works by stopping the feed dogs and letting the sewer guide the fabric by hand. Most sewing machines have a lever or button that disengages the feed dogs. I had to get out a screwdriver and manually remove the feed dogs on my sewing machine.
• Free motion stitched over the old stitching. It worked beautifully.

When I sew sideways and then backwards without stopping the machine, I feel like I have MAGICAL GODLIKE POWERS. It’s pretty awesome, you should try it sometime.

What Would Work Better

• Pin the pattern to the patch
• Free motion stitch the pattern, remove pattern
• stitch patch into hole in the shirt

So much easier, no?

Aand now for the pics (after the break (c’mon, click. they’re neat.))!

Singer Sewing Machine

The machine is a Singer 221 Featherweight made in about 1950. Singer made about a bazillion  of them when they were in production. They now sell for about $500 on Ebay if they are in pristine condition. Mine wasn’t, and besides, it’s my sewing machine and not yours.

My parents brought it home with them from cleaning out Grandma’s apartment (my cousins got the treadle powered one. –_–). I am presented with a scruffy kinda cloth covered box with a handle that was surprisingly light. After taking way too long to figure out the latches, I am faced with a tray in the top of the box, filled with thread, tools, and noncritical sewing machine bits. Extract tray. Look! A sewing machine! All in black with shiny gold-like details! Extract sewing machine, place on table. Power cable? Extract from box. The first thing noticeably wrong was that when bent, the insulation on the power and accelerator cables made crackling noises.

Oh dear. I’ve just inherited a safety and a fire hazard.