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

Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, we all make errors of judgement. With hindsight, I now realise that I made an error when I fitted a new motor to my Singer 99K. The motor should have gone onto my Singer 201K. Here is my reasoning, with the benefit of hindsight. Although my 99K was motor driven when I received it, the motor wiring was very dodgy so I removed it from the machine and replaced it with a hand crank. By the time the crank arrived the machine was working quietly following a thorough cleaning and oiling regime. With the crank installed their was a real improvement in the machine. But we can all do daft things. This was what I did. I fitted a new 0.45 watt YDK motor and pedal. What? That was just a replacement for the original motor that had seen better days. Whats wrong   with that, you may ask. Well, nothing really but it was not MY best option. Here's why. I had a hand cranked 99K, a hand cranked 201K and a new YDK motor and foot-pedal. My thoughts were to keep t

Contrary to what Diane, my partner thinks, I am not a sewing machine collector. I do have two vintage Singers, a 99K Centennial edition from 1951 and a 201K dating back to 1940. I also have a Toyota Super Jeans 34, Toyota 3304 overlocker and Singer 14SH754 overlocker. All of these machines are "in use", meaning that they are not display only machines. All of them except for the Singer overlocker have been used in the past week! All have different strengths and weaknesses but I was beginning to feel that having two vintage machines, both hand cranked was more than a bit quirky. I definitely was trending towards putting an electric motor on one of them. The 99K would seem to be the ideal machine to remain hand cranked, being smaller and far more portable than the 201K, but as it originally had a Singer motor attached from new, I erred on the thought of replacing the crank on the 99K. For a little over £30 inc p & p I was able to obtain a brand new YDK  90w. 0.45 amp motor

I seemed to be constantly busy during the last two weeks of April. I just seem to have been trying out new sewing projects, one after another. It began with making a tailor's ham, which then progressed to making a sleeve roll, then 10 rice filled pyramid pattern weights and a drawstring bag to keep the weights in. The ham was made on my Singer 99K, the sleeve roll. pattern weights and bag on my Singer 201K. Diane wanted me to make her a tool roll for some of her jewellery making tools. As I had recently taken apart an old leather skirt to re-used the leather, this seemed like a fitting project to make on my Singer 99K (using a leather needle). The roll was lined with felt that we got at the Gloucester Resource Centre. The most tricky project over the past couple of weeks was without a doubt the Office Party Bag from Debbie Shore. I chose to make this from some vinyl which I obtained through the Gloucester Resource Centre some weeks ago. As my first bag proje

This is my newley acquired 1940, Singer 201K with hand crank which I collected on Saturday. It came complete with a bentwood case and two boxes of accessories (most of which are duplicated). The machine had been idle for almost 10 years, except for one sewing session in late 2016. It was surface clean other than old oil residue on the needle bar and presser foot bar, and in very good physical condition for a machine that is 77 years old! Inside was a little different. In parts, it was pretty mucky from old dried out and discoloured oil, a sure sign the machine had been idle for a long time. Everything was moving fairly freely but the stitches left a lot to be desired. Some investigation was needed, mainly as part of my normal clean down regime. Removing the faceplate revealed needle bar and presser foot mechanisms that were sorely in need of some TLC. Everything was working fine behind the faceplate, it was just covered in a fairly thick brown residue from old oil. An hour

Adding lace, ribbon etc to a garment edge. To do this I centre the needle hole in the adjuster. Place the lace/ribbon into the first slot down on the right of the attachment, and the main fabric in the first slot down on the right. Ensure that the start of both fabrics is below or past the needle hole and lower the presser foot. I like to cross the fabrics, left over right, just a little when sewing. This helps to ensure that both the fabric and the lace/ribbon are sewn together. See the video below. More on the edge stitching attachment: Singer edge stitching attachment.

Looking like a weird set of ladders the Singer edge stitch attachment is one of the most versatile attachments I have, so I thought that I would share some of the ways it can be used. First, it is a very effective and almost faultless way to stitch at the edge of material. Remove the normal presser foot and attach the edge stitcher and you are good to go. I like to turn under 1/8-1/4" of fabric first, and either press or finger press a sharp edge in place. The video below details the full edge stitching process using the attachment. Singer edge stitching foot   More edge stitcher techniques: Singer 99: Adding lace, ribbon etc to a garment edge with the edge stitching attachment

This skill eluded me for a while. I could not find anything on Youtube or the internet, so I decided to make a short video myself once I mastered the technique, which is very simple. I was told that it not a good idea to hand crank my Singer 99 in the wrong direction and as mine has no reverse function locking the start and end of a seam was a bit of a puzzle. So for those of you mulling over a similar issue with your vintage straight stitch only, no reverse sewing machine, her is a short video on how I do it.

This is my Super Jeans 34. The big daddy of Toyota's Super Jeans machines with 34 stitch options. It's black, well actually it's more like a dark brown to my eyes. Like almost every domestic sewing machines today, it has a plastic exterior with a rigid metal frame inside. This makes for a lightweight machine, but one which can still punch its way through multiple layers of denim fabric with ease. So what drew me to this machine and what is it like to use? Well, first let me say that my partner has been using a Toyota Quiltmaster 226 for close to 5 years and swears by it as a real, un-fussy workhorse. She is a quilter and has made a multitude of quilts on her machine since we bought it, and it has been totally reliable. I have a Toyota 3304 over locker that I use for garment construction too. It took me a weekend to get to grips with a machine that uses 4 threads instead of two, but since then I loved using the 3304, it's a great over locker, quiet, easy to use,

Before throwing out the corroded parts for my Singer 99K, the original needle plate and presser foot, I did a little aggressive clean up with a my Dremel, a grinder bit followed by an oil-stone. Off came the corrosion, but so did the mirror-like shine on both parts. Are they still usable? Definitely yes, in fact the foot is now back on the machine as my standard working foot. I really like the 1/8" narrow leg on this foot.  The needle plate looks fine, if a but dull, but again it is totally functional. However I am keeping the new plate on the machine as it has seam guide markings, unlike the original plate. Original presser foot and needle plate have cleaned up to a usable condition.

The tools for the job, just add my Singer 99 sewing machine  Diane broke her sunglasses a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday she bought a new pair (in the hope of a summer some time this year.) Her new glasses have no case, so she asked me to make one for her from my pile leather scraps. I have a fair bit of automotive upholstery leather bits and pieces that I picked up at The Gloucester Resource Center's Scrapstore a few weeks back. Leather needles and a Teflon foot that I ordered for my machine arrived earlier in the week. (I used the standard Singer straight stitch foot for this project). I don't have much of an excuse not to make a case for Diane's sunglasses and put my old Singer 99 machine (and me) to a new test. I was not going to try anything fancy for this project, just a plain slipcase with a flap, simply sewn together. No gluing involved. First I had to carefully iron out a few kinks and creases in the leather using a medium/hot dry iron and brown paper to avo

The replacement needle plate with seam allowance markings that I mentioned in the last post has arrived, and it is much better, but there was one small issue. It's a really tight fit to sit it in place. Looking at it closely in situ I found that the needle also drops really close to the edge of the needle hole. I needed to make a few modifications to make it seat a little better in the bed of the machine..... out comes the Dremel and a conical grinding wheel. A few minutes of grinding and checking the fit and the plate fits just right. I suppose I should have sent it back, but it was a simple and easy fix to do. New Needle plate fitted. I use Coates "Moon" thread as my go-to thread. At less than £1 for a 1,000yd spool, it is inexpensive, comes in a wide range of colours and shades and is strong. But, as I found out yesterday the 99K has an issue with it. It's a cross wound thread, which, unlike the parallel wound spools of old, it needs to peel the thread off o

This is my recently acquired Singer 99. Made in the UK in 1951 as part of the Singer Centennial year, which I found it in a local secondhand shop. It is small and heavy, being around 3/4 the size of Singers model 66 of the same period. I have been casually looking for a vintage "black" Singer sewing machine for a while. This was the first that I have found that caught my eye as worth a second look. When I found it, it looked in reasonable condition, it had a motor which I was unable to test and the store owner had not tested it either, but the wiring looked very suspect. Turning the hand-wheel made the needle mechanism work, so it seemed in reasonable mechanical condition. There was no noticeable rust other than on the needle plate under the presser foot, which is a sure sign that the machine had not been used in a very long time. The case was a little knocked about, but nothing that was more than reasonable wear and tear. It had it's original instruction manua