Thursday, March 14, 2013

If All Else Fails, Read the Manual

My head must be in the clouds or somewhere else that isn't here... This morning I was looking for the fabric that I'm using for the pillow backs... well... I looked and looked, and looked some more. No luck. Finally, in the last place I looked (yeah I know - I'd already looked in all the other places two and three times when I walked into the spare bedroom) there it was, plain as day, sitting on the bed. WTH? I must have put it there just a few days ago, but I had NO memory of doing so. Scary!

Back to the manual - in all my searching (I seriously looked everywhere), I came across my sewing machine manual. I'm sure I haven't seen it for 25 years. I brought it upstairs, just in case. Wouldn't you know it, first line that I'm trying to sew the machine binds. Oh bother. Well, I got out the manual and some machine oil and gave it the first proper oiling it has ever had. We'd oiled it before, but this time I got all the right spots. Closed up the machine and bingo, it ran like a charm. Things went well, but I still had to almost pull the fabric through. And of course I can't pull evenly. As it happens I was taking a break and thumbing through the manual and what to my wondering eyes did behold - a part that can move up and down to control the speed of the feeding bits. Guess what - it worked! My machine has not run this well as far as I can remember. I'm playing around with the foot thing too and trying it out at a different angle. Who knows, maybe I'll start to like sewing :-)



The colours didn't turn out right in the photo as I just used my tablet and it is not very bright in here. I'm really happy with how my first attempt turned out. I like the piping(again, fabric I already had), and the backing works well too. I'm happy :-) I guess looking through 1000s of ebay entries, not to mention 3 big fabric stores was worth it. I've cut out the 2nd cushion and a tablecloth. Once those are done I'll do a cushion for the chair (these ones are for the sofa) and two small ones for the dining chairs.

I'm going to be sew busy these next few days ;-)

In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.
Nikos Kazantzakis

2 comments:

Merikay said...

I recovered the four throw pillows for the Alfa, but when we traveled I found they were just in the way most of the time. I don't need anything in it that does not do at least double duty. Simply decorative is not a function in my mind. We have throw pillows on the house couch and never use them for anything. We just move them out of the way when we want to sit!

Ruth said...

Oh, no wonder you were frustrated with sewing!!! I hope things work out better now.