Singer Professional Buttonholer Or How I Found Religion

regular, keyhole and bound buttonhole

For a few weeks now there has been a discussion on Pattern Review about  Greist and Singer buttonhole attachments, and I’ve had a Singer for a long time.  I never used it because it never dawned on me to see if it fits a vintage Singer Touch n’ Sew 648 [...]

Pantone Shopping Guide: Check to make sure you have all the pages

A few weeks go I was on Gorgeous Fabrics comparing fabric and looking up color numbers in my Pantone Shopping Color Guide fanbook, and much to my surprise it turns out a page is missing.  The color and its page number was listed in the index; however I had page 127 and 129 but no 128.  [...]

McCall’s 5525 – Solved Technical Difficulties of a Different Sort

Left: Bernina foot, 20mm wide. Right: Willcox & Gibbs foot, 8mm wide

When Ann gave me this Willcox & Gibbs industrial it came with some good stuff; there were several needles (industrial machine needles are different from home machine needles) a spare belt (no servos here its belt driven), a few rather scary looking watch-those-fingers feet (see right, [...]

True Colors: Don’t Trust That Monitor

Last week I bought a Pantone Color Guide and it’s amazing how useful it is. Savvy fabric websites like Emma One Sock and Gorgeous Fabrics already use Pantone color numbers in their fabric descriptions, and I hope this becomes a standard for all fabric and sewing trim websites (are you listening, M&J Trim and [...]

Instant Gratification!

She arrived in less than 24 hours!  No need to run another photo – she looks exactly like the photo on Ebay.  Her name is Della.

Delayed Gratification

Finally, after lusting away for years, today I ordered a professional dress form.  I found it on Ebay at Dress Form Mannequin Factory Outlet,and while it’s not a Wolf (which would cost three times as much), the company that makes them gets high ratings for their service and the quality of the form.  It has all the features I [...]

The Ghost of Christmas Past

My mother sent me these vintage needle booklets for Christmas – aren’t they wonderful?  She said in her note that she found them at a “second hand sale” and as soon as I opened them I felt an immediate and powerful connection to the sewist who used them.

My favorite tools are always the ones I make myself.  I [...]

A Handy Tool

My mother gave me this for Christmas, and I just gave it a try for the first time. It’s a great alternative to a regular metal thimble.  When I hand sew I like to have as much dexterity as possible, and this product is just a small metal disc with an adhesive pad on [...]

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