Dusting-off Miss Jones

I was at a loose end today, so I gave Miss Jones a thorough seeing-too.

She's not been oiled-up in a very long time, but an hour spent cleaning-out her crevices and drizzling the golden nectar from my fine pointy thing, she sprung into action.

Still deciding whether to give her a facelift, or leave as-is. It would be a shame to remove all the scars of history, I reckon. She's made it this far from c1891~1892, so maybe I'll leave it alone.

One thing that struck me is how fiddly the needle is to set, and how easily it might be done incorrectly by someone not 'in the know'. So I set about making a short film on how to do it. Here is the fruits of my efforts:

Until next time, cheerio.

...like a record baby, right round round round...

No I'm not going to talk about Liverpudlian 80s pop sensation Dead Or Alive (although the MP3 is playing as I sit here typing - and it's New Wave, not pop!) but rather buttonholers.

I'm going to start with a question: who in their right mind isn't fascinated by these things? Can you imagine the day the chaps who invented them got tow work and thought "I have a cunning plan!" and set about making a gadget to enable a straight stitch machine to sew a tight zigzag forwards and backwards, really close together in two perfect lines? And do it in one go? Fabulous!

My favourite is the Singer buttonholer, particularly the later cream and red one (because it comes in a fabulous little plastic box!) closely followed by the YS Star (domestic). I can sit and watch them work all day long (and have done).

If you don't have one, get one. It's hours of fun and entertainment! I don't care where you get it from either, just so long as you do. Ebay is a good source (although prices there are creeping ever higher as sellers try to keep up with Ebay's ever-increasing charges). Or my shop, or Helen Howe's shop or your local charity shop... But do get one if you haven't already!

My little shop at No Touching

Helen Howe's sewing machine emporium

...and for three minutes high-camp, have a go of this YouTube video!

Until next time, cheerio.

Underdogs are go!

Tell me a particular sewing machine is crap, and I probably won't believe you. Show me why it's crap, and I might. It was like that with my Singer 328k, the model I learned to sew on. "It's noisy", they whined. "It's not as good as the <insert random Singer model number here>" they went on. Oh... bugger off. But of course, we know it's a fabulous workhorse, and just seems to do everything asked of it. It's all metal and probably one of the last of the good Singers (though I'll be extolling the vitues of the 348k in the coming weeks.)

But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the real underdogs, specifically the 285k. It got rotten reviews back in the early 60s; Noisy and vibrates when run fast (who the hell runs a machine fast? - what's the rush?) So of course I just had to have one. Five an a half quid later, and one is on the way. Watch this space...

Update: Horribly let-down by the vendor of said 285k on Ebay, so I it'll be a while before I get to blog about one of these little fellows. Gutted :-(