Showing posts with label sewing machines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sewing machines. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

What I'm working on: the BurdaStyle Bag

The bag pattern from The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook:

Continuing to feed my bag obsession. I found an old leather coat that was very worn, with the intention of cutting it up and making something out of it, and this bag came to mind. I had cut the pieces out before I left on the trip to San Francisco, and started assembling them when I came back. Not quite finished yet, but I'm liking how it's turning out. 

In other news, my primary sewing machine (Janome My Excel) continues to fail me on heavy fabrics (and leather). It was made for home deco work, but it's 10-15? years old now and I've done all I can. I bought some time by taking it apart and thoroughly cleaning it, but the needle plate on it is warped and I think that is contributing to the problem of skipped stitches. So...

I went for the very affordable Singer Heavy Duty 4423. I seriously don't need a lot of bells and whistles. I just need something to get the job done, and it's doing it. 


Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Travelog: San Francisco

You sometimes find the darndest things in airports. Like, for example, this week at SFO (San Francisco International airport), I spotted this lovely exhibit of sewing machines and other sewing stuff: link opens the whole Google+ photo album. They had an impressive collection of early sewing machines, most of the major brands represented, an array of vintage accessories like thimbles, needlecases, patterns, and such. Here are just a few photos that I snapped with my phone camera.

Beautiful Singer

A pattern drafting system

19th century gown

Lovely sewing kit

Toy sewing machines

Chatelaines

Patterns

Another 19th c. gown
That's not actually why I'm in San Francisco this week, but it was an unexpected bonus.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...