Sewing Machine Lesson
Apr. 16th, 2013 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzWhen Peter and Karin bought another sewing machine for the store, they got a free lesson (to be booked at the store) for the user of said sewing machine. They negotiated with the saleswoman and got Willemijn and me both a spot in the lesson plan. Tonight was the night, and we were excited.
We quickly ate at work, hoisted the machines into her car and drove to Veghel. Kim had already said they were very happy to sell us new presser feet for the machine, and boy was she not kidding.
Next to that, the woman giving the lesson was a very chaotic, Ritalin-powered person who irked me to no end by not having anything prepared and was flamboyant in cutting squares of jeans fabric for us to work with.
I'd have liked to tie her to a chair with duck tape. Oodles and oodles of duck tape.
The lesson itself was rather fun, but mostly focused on the new and exciting ways to use presser feet of some € 30,- or more. We had brought a question: sewing stretchy nilo fabric with a twin needle without making a 3D effect in the fabric
But it wasn't even answered to our satisfaction! We could either set our bobbin tension by hand (error-prone), buy an extra bobbin just for hemming (€ 64,-, no thank you) or use a water-soluble interfacing on top of the fabric (let's dunk every dress in water, just to see if this soluble stuff really disappears! *snort*).
Around ten pm my brain short-circuited and I was done, with nearly 12 hours behind the sewing machine taking its toll. I could no longer absorb or make sense of what she was saying, and this was right in the middle of hemming knit fabrics. We should set the stitch length longer, apparantly, and I couldn't make sense of WHY.
However, I did learn interesting things. How to adjust the presser foot pressure, how to disconnect the feed dogs, how to select a stitch with a number higher than 9 (I thought the other 156 stitches needed an extension connected to the side of the machine to make them work, but there was just a different way of selecting these stitch numbers that wasn't apparant from the front of the sewing machine!). I learned how I could balance the feed dog movement (if going forward makes for longer steps than going backward, very important for decorative stitches!), and I learned that if you want to take forever to finish a project, and if you want to spend a thousand euro's on an already expensive machine, you can.
Mostly, the lesson was just frugal, focusing on very cute work for linens, towels, children's clothes and tablecloths. Not so very interesting for the procution work we do.
The one thing I would like to share is this 3D effect of a twin needle to hem a knit shirt by using a stitched zig-zag. Use a foot with a wide opening, and adjust the width of the stitch so you won't break your needles. Upper tension to 8, and stitch away!
We quickly ate at work, hoisted the machines into her car and drove to Veghel. Kim had already said they were very happy to sell us new presser feet for the machine, and boy was she not kidding.
Next to that, the woman giving the lesson was a very chaotic, Ritalin-powered person who irked me to no end by not having anything prepared and was flamboyant in cutting squares of jeans fabric for us to work with.
I'd have liked to tie her to a chair with duck tape. Oodles and oodles of duck tape.
The lesson itself was rather fun, but mostly focused on the new and exciting ways to use presser feet of some € 30,- or more. We had brought a question: sewing stretchy nilo fabric with a twin needle without making a 3D effect in the fabric
But it wasn't even answered to our satisfaction! We could either set our bobbin tension by hand (error-prone), buy an extra bobbin just for hemming (€ 64,-, no thank you) or use a water-soluble interfacing on top of the fabric (let's dunk every dress in water, just to see if this soluble stuff really disappears! *snort*).
Around ten pm my brain short-circuited and I was done, with nearly 12 hours behind the sewing machine taking its toll. I could no longer absorb or make sense of what she was saying, and this was right in the middle of hemming knit fabrics. We should set the stitch length longer, apparantly, and I couldn't make sense of WHY.
However, I did learn interesting things. How to adjust the presser foot pressure, how to disconnect the feed dogs, how to select a stitch with a number higher than 9 (I thought the other 156 stitches needed an extension connected to the side of the machine to make them work, but there was just a different way of selecting these stitch numbers that wasn't apparant from the front of the sewing machine!). I learned how I could balance the feed dog movement (if going forward makes for longer steps than going backward, very important for decorative stitches!), and I learned that if you want to take forever to finish a project, and if you want to spend a thousand euro's on an already expensive machine, you can.
Mostly, the lesson was just frugal, focusing on very cute work for linens, towels, children's clothes and tablecloths. Not so very interesting for the procution work we do.
The one thing I would like to share is this 3D effect of a twin needle to hem a knit shirt by using a stitched zig-zag. Use a foot with a wide opening, and adjust the width of the stitch so you won't break your needles. Upper tension to 8, and stitch away!
Juicy detail: when I asked if she had cotton or wool quilter's batting (technically a kind of interfacing, hence it falls into the "haberdahsery" department), the woman giving the lesson snidely replied "We don't have fabrics".
Nor brains, apparantly.
The lesson is in two parts, and our next lesson is... *drumroll*... in four months. Her agenda was crazy packed full. Not a very endearing quality either.
All in all, not quite wasting an evening, but not really an enjoyable one either.
Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-04-17 06:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-17 09:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-17 11:17 am (UTC)Dat vrouwtje is de reden waarom kerels glazig gaan staan kijken als het over naaien en naaimachines gaat!
mvg
Bob