Sewing on and Serging forward

Yes, you read it correctly. I have gone and added a new YDK motor to my Singer 99K. Now both of my vintage machines are motor driven! I have to say that since I swapped my first YDK motor from the 99K to the 201, the 201 has been in almost daily use and it has performed flawlessly. It was a good move on my part back in June, but I really felt that the 99K should be motor driven, as it was when I first bought it (even though the original wiring was in a dangerous state.) So I took the plunge and went for a second motor, received it a couple of days ago and put it straight on the 99K. Like before, it runs very well, but is considerably more noisy than the almost silent 201. I think I have found an issue that is adding to the noise. The tension spring is hitting the thread guide below the take up arm as the spring flicks back and forth. If I can fix this (may need a new tension spring) the noise level will drop considerably. Fingers crossed!!

A couple of weeks ago I came across a Kimono Tutorial video on YouTube from YouTuber, Peppermint Milk. It looked pretty straightforward, gave all the pattern dimensions need, and only needed a couple of yards of material. I had some knit fabric that I obtained from my local "scrap store". It was easily long enough but it had a large flaw running across the width which I needed to avoid if I were to have a successful make. I drew up the pattern on brown wrapping paper, just three pieces, laid it out on the fabric and was able to miss the flawed section of fabric with a little juggling of pieces. Pheeeeeew ......... Once I had the pieces cut out I followed much of the construction in Peppermint Milk's YouTube video, using my Toyota 3304 overlocker to do the sleeves, shoulder and side seams, using a 4 thread overlock. I pressed as I went to keep everything neat. Once all the pieces were attached together I decided that the kimono needed a different finish to the neck

A few weeks ago I made my first foray into the world of making a lined Tote bag. I had some good quality medium weight cotton and some heavyweight poly/cotton material, both in shades of blue so I dived in. I wanted something a little more complicated to make than the Morsbag , so I turned to my copy of Merchant and Mills: Sewing Book  (which I highly recommend) for inspiration/a pattern. I went for their Tote Bag, which is a little more complex to make than your average "YouTube Tote Bag", having a 2" gusset, is fully lined and has a pocket. I stuck pretty rigidly to the pattern for the bag and lining, but omitted the inside pocket and made my own cloth straps from the outer fabric rather than add leather straps. The bag took a couple  of hours to make. I am very pleased with the results, so much so that I made a second on a few days ago, this one has webbing strap handles. This is a great large shopper and I am sure I will be making more in the future. Me

I stumbled across the Morsbags website quite by accident, following a link from a Facebook group. Morsbags are homemade, group made, community made tote bags from a very simple design that will hopefully replace the use of plastic carriers and their horrific effect on the environment. Many Morsbag groups give their bags away! A Morsbag is very easy to make, requiring little knowledge of machine sewing, though some familiarity with a sewing machine will help a lot. The point is to take some otherwise junk fabric that is whole but destined for the bin and recycle it to a tote. Man-made fibres fabrics frequently end up in a landfill so the more they can be recycled the better. I don't intend to go into how to make a Morsbag, there are full instructions on how to do this on the Morsbag website here:  https://goo.gl/ttslls , inc patterns and a video. There are also a number of additional videos on YouTube that may be useful. I have a couple of fabric pattern sample books that I pick

A quick project that I did today was to make a Hussif which I found in the projects section of the Merchant & Mill "Sewing Book". A Hussif is a sewing roll of tools and thread inspired by the rolls that WW1 soldiers used to maintain their uniforms. My version, which is almost identical to the pattern in the "Sewing Book", holds a pair of small scissors, a tape measure, pack of Household needles, seam ripper, two pots of pins and two spools of heavy duty thread. The Hussif is not only a roll to store and protect the equipment, it also has a built-in pin cushion. As the Merchant and Mills pattern may be copyright, I have not included it here. I just need to find a couple of Tic-Tac boxes to hold the pins instead if the childproof "pill pots" which are a safe but a little on the chubby side.

I had a small frustration with my vintage sewing machines which I have now cured. When I sew using cross-wound thread, which is most of the time, I do not use the machines spool holder. It is designed to work with spools of stacked thread, like the old Sylko reels. I run my thread from a thread stand, which works in reducing any additional twist to the thread by pulling the thread off the spool from end, not the side. In theory, it works great but in practice, I hit a snag. The spool stand is tall, with the thread stand guide arm being 3-4 inches higher than the spool pin on the machine. Most of the time there is no issue with this, especially if I am sewing at slow to medium pace, but if I pick up speed the thread has a tendency to jump out of the first thread guide on the machine. I find this happens on both my 201K and 99K machines. What causes the problem is that the thread goes slack if I take my foot off the gas. There is nothing to stop the thread flapping up and down suffici