Sewing on and Serging forward

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...

Back in late summer 2015, I purchased a Toyota 3304 overlocker, second hand for my partner Diane to use in her crafting endeavours. It was eighteen months old, in immaculate condition and the most basic model that Toyota made at the time. That's it in the photo, with a small addition that I will come to in a future post. Now if I had known more about overlockers (or sergers as they are called in the USA), I may have thought  twice about buying the Toyota 3304 which is a basic 3 or 4 thread overlocker with very little in the way of bells and whistles. It lacks a differential feed function, it requires an optional needle plate and presser foot to create rolled hems, there is no two thread overlock option on this machine. If I had followed the internet pundits who seem to praise a few "well known" brands and models, you know the ones, I would not have considered a Toyota machine, but that would have been a big mistake, as I have found out. I am like a lot of men. Give...