Monday 20 July 2015

The Turn of the Singer part 2 - aka 'Name That Foot!'

I haven't made anything in a week or so because this week I have a crafting weekend planned with my best friend, so I'm saving projects up to work on then. There should be at least a few things for me to share next week, so watch this space.

In the mean time, I have finally tackled the contents of the accessories drawer, hooray! Hopefully this should be a guide to what's what, or at least what it looks like, for people who are unfamiliar with it all, like me.

When I first got the machine, I checked everything that was with it, was amazed and terrified by all the complicated metal contraptions in the drawer, and promptly shut it again. I keep the bobbins in there, and the spare needles, but have been avoiding all of the extra feet...until now.

So, amazingly, this is a part of the Singer 28k that I haven't photographed yet! Under the hand crank is the accessories drawer; the lid slides open to reveal a handy storage space.
Along with the easily identified things, was all this:
Sorry, it all looks rather surgical on my white table, but you get the idea.

So, from what I've now researched, I think I've got these right (please correct me if I'm wrong, I'll be happy to amend).
One binder and four hemmers. I'm assuming the binder is the one on the left. The binder would probably have been useful (if confusing at first) for the binding on the garden apron. And the hemmers will definitely come in handy.

A ruffler. I'm still working out exactly what each bit does, but here's what I found today: The little screw towards the top right adjusts the width of the ruffles, and it works on mine. I can see where it attaches to the machine on the left, and where the material goes underneath. I think the exact workings will make sense when I see it in action.

Quilter on the left, seam guide (with screw) on the right. Both nice and easy to work out, and after a quick use of Google, I suddenly spotted the holes next to the slide plate for the seam guide to go in. Again, this is going to be very helpful!

And a tuckmarker. Which...is for marking tucks and that's all I can tell. Google isn't helping much on this one tonight, so it's still baffling me. Any help would be appreciated.

So, I've named them all, and worked out a bit about what they do. I'll attach them to the machine and test them out when I have a bit more spare time. Now I need to go and buy the zipper foot and invisible zipper foot I was actually looking for originally, haha...

Saturday 4 July 2015

Gardening Apron and Deliveries

This has been a great week.

Firstly, lots of things arrived in the post (and I love getting orders delivered in the post):
- My copy of 'Love At First Stitch', which poor Royal Mail have been trying to deliver to me for about a month and a half. I started reading it as soon as it arrived, and I already love it!
- A rotary cutter, to stop me cutting wobbly lines with my scissors (in theory, anyway).
- The amazing and adorable purple dinosaur fabric from the Natural History collection by Lizzy House. Purple and dinosaurs, together, in one fabric. It's pretty much my ideal pattern.
And yesterday, my colleague gave me the ruler you can see at the top of the picture. It belonged to her Mum, so I was really humbled that she gave it to me, and I now have someone else's heirloom alongside my own, which is lovely. It'll also make measuring things a heck of a lot easier than using my 30cm ruler!

The second reason that this has been a great week is that my sewing machine was fixed. It's been having problems with tension, so I gave it a clean, then realised a lot of the tension problems came from having too long a stitch length.

The manual for the Singer 28k says that to shorten the stitch length, you turn the screw 'outwards'. I took this to mean clockwise, towards the hand wheel. After a couple of days of trying it, getting confused, then comparing the different stitches, I realised that I had assumed wrong. Unfortunately, after I'd had this revelation, the screw on mine became stuck; on 4mm stitches, too! I tried turning it, with no luck; but after getting my boyfriend to help, carefully turning it with the wrench, it moved and can now be turned by hand again.
So, to summarise: to shorten the stitch length on a 28k, turn the screw anti-clockwise. To lengthen it, turn clockwise. It might take a bit of effort, like it did on mine!

And finally, this week was finished off perfectly because I finally made my gardening apron! I've been wanting to make this for ages, since I first saw this tutorial on the Hobbycraft blog. Here is my finished apron:
And here it is modelled by me, with some of my gardening tools in. I opted for three pockets and lengthened them too so that I would be able to carry my forks, trowels and other tools in it, and it worked! It even fits my new gloves in, too.
So I am very happy this weekend, despite the heatwave we're having in England. Hopefully next I'll be attempting a headscarf/headband, and then after that the plan is to make the cover for my sewing machine and its 'coffin lid' box. Although I do also have plans for a bag, too, so we'll see what happens. :)