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I love sewing machines
Being a member of a Border morris team means sewing an awful lot of tatter jackets. This one, modelled by the ever-gorgeous Oswin is the last one I made by hand.
We used have a rule that everyone made their own jacket, but it rapidly became apparent that everyone meant to do it and very few actually got around to it. So, I ended up doing most of the jackets with help from one or two others. Every darn one of them had vast numbers of tatters stitched on by hand. During a season's dancing, a fair number of them become detached. I took to double-stitching the edges of each tatter, but even that didn't prevent it entirely.
My Mother in Law, the wonderful Molly, asked me recently if I'd like an advance birthday present of a sewing machine. I practically bit her hand off. (I'd had one or two second-hand machines in the past, but never managed to get them to work properly). My new machine is a Brother LS14, a basic model, with no fancy features, but it works and is dead easy to use. Tatter jackets have suddenly become easier and several hemming and repair jobs for trousers, etc that had been sitting around for ages have suddenly been done.
I'm starting to work through the existing jackets, reinforcing each row of tatters with machine stitching. It'll be a long job, even with the machine, but I'd never even have attempted it by hand.
I've done one new jacket already for our new banjo player, and I'll shortly do another one for our drummer.
We used have a rule that everyone made their own jacket, but it rapidly became apparent that everyone meant to do it and very few actually got around to it. So, I ended up doing most of the jackets with help from one or two others. Every darn one of them had vast numbers of tatters stitched on by hand. During a season's dancing, a fair number of them become detached. I took to double-stitching the edges of each tatter, but even that didn't prevent it entirely.
My Mother in Law, the wonderful Molly, asked me recently if I'd like an advance birthday present of a sewing machine. I practically bit her hand off. (I'd had one or two second-hand machines in the past, but never managed to get them to work properly). My new machine is a Brother LS14, a basic model, with no fancy features, but it works and is dead easy to use. Tatter jackets have suddenly become easier and several hemming and repair jobs for trousers, etc that had been sitting around for ages have suddenly been done.
I'm starting to work through the existing jackets, reinforcing each row of tatters with machine stitching. It'll be a long job, even with the machine, but I'd never even have attempted it by hand.
I've done one new jacket already for our new banjo player, and I'll shortly do another one for our drummer.
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Oswin is so cute it hurts!
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Some machines are made of a special steel where the steel has oil in it, and they don't need oiling at all.
If you don't have instructions, find the manufacturer's website and see if you can download a copy. They are that important.
The instructions will tell you which needles to buy, too. Don't get cheap ones, they break. Same with thread. Also, don't leave thread out in sunlight. I learned that the hard way.
Do keep it dust free as far as you can. And dust it off before use. If it has a cover, keep it covered when not in use, and if it doesn't, make it a cover.
Oh, and use the right foot and needle for the job. That will make your life very much simpler.
And finally always practice any new technique or one you haven't used for a while on a bit of spare cloth before using it on the garment. That will save you many hours of miserable unpicking. Don't ask me how I know this!
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Yay Oswin!
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The manual is pretty minimal.
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It's a good idea before starting any large project to at least take out the bobbin case and brush the area under it. Sometimes thread will fray tiny bits and get caught in the various guides, too. Whenever things go wonky the first thing I do is clean & rethread both the top & the bobbin. The next is the needle- if you're pushing or pulling the fabric you can bend the needle slightly or even blunt it.
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If I had enough con ribbons, I'd make one on the spot.
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Well, you are a woman of thousand skills...:-):-)