Vintage sewing machine attachment project: introduction

Thank you all for your feedback on the cover. This gives me something to work with, appreciate the time that those of you who left comments took to help me.

Now here is the introduction. I did these pictures myself by putting white paper on a shelf in the fridge and turning the inside of the fridge into a sort of light box. This was my own idea. Sewing teaches you to improvise.

So here we go. Let me know what you think!

Vintage sewing machine attachments for the modern sewist

The attachments designed for and heavily used by the home sewers from the early to mid+ 20^th can still be very useful to the modern sewist.

 To understand why requires first that the sewing person of today consider one very interesting idea- that we might have lost touch with some of our best technologies. We need to think of what we may have have left by the wayside in the assumption that newer, by definition, is always to be better.

This is why I think a modern sewist could benefit from learning more about vintage sewing machine attachments:

·      Vintage attachments work so well. No human is capable of stitching a hem with the stitches consistently 1/16” from the finished edge with the accuracy and ease of an adjustable hemmer. And certainly not capable of doing it simultaneously with folding up the hem too to an exact width – all without pinning or basting.

·      Vintage attachments are made so well. First, all of these vintage attachments are made of metal, carefully. Secondly they tend to all be incredibly ingeniously engineered – to manipulate the fabric in intricate ways under the constant of a straight stitch (or in the case of mid ‘60s buttonholers, also some zig zag stitches. So often purely mechanical methods of manipulating fabric are simply more consistent and precise. Metal grooves, the cam, or template leave no room for movement. In my view fancy zig zag stitch made with a drop-in cam will always be more accurate than one driven by electronics, which doesn’t have the same direct steady control over the needle.

·      Vintage attachments are inexpensive. Compared to newer attachments vintage attachments are a bargain. Look on eBay and Etsy and in box of attachments sold along with older machines at yard sales.

·      Vintage attachments can be used on your modern machine. Many older attachments were designed for straight stitch machines that had a low shank. A low shank is means a presser foot bar fairly close to the throat plate, measuring about ½” from the bottom of the presser foot to the centre of the screw that attaches the foot. Many commonly available machines, and certainly many older ones, have a low shank and can accommodate these feet directly. 

However most industrials and upper end modern machines have a high shank – the bottom to the foot to mid screw measurement is about 1”. If you have a low shank machine you can just use the vintage attachments. To fit the old attachment to a modern high machine all you have to do is purchase a shank adapter, in this case basically a shank extender, that will allow you to fit the older low shank attachment to a modern machine. Take your time and search out the shank adapter for your model – I have had great success with online sellers like www.sewingmachinesplus.com

There are even adapters for Bernina’s, which have their own breed of all-in-one feet, as opposed to the snap on time. Using a Bernina adapter I have been able to use all my low shank vintage feet on my Bernina. Note there are two exceptions to this rule. Really old machines, like treadles or rotary hooks like the classic Whites, use feet that attach with a toe clamp.

These feet will fit only those machines and can not to be adapted to any others.

This is what toe clamp attachments look like:

Finally there is another shank style to consider these are the slant shanks used in a series of machines Singer produced in large quantities in their factories in the 1960’s. Slant needle machines were designed for the larger work area they were able to provide in front of the foot (a very nice feature actually) but feet with a slant shank can fit only on those machines.

Many vintage attachments were also manufactured in both low and slant shank  form – just be careful to but a specific slant foot when sewing on a slant needle machine, like the Singer Rocketeer or Touch and Sew.

·      Vintage attachments open up to the possibility of including a vintage machine your sewing arsenal. Older machines are so easy to find and so inexpensive. In many cases, since they were made of metal, a good cleaning, oiling and a new needle are all they need to get them up and running. One of my own favourites, a 1960 Singer Rocketeer, was stored in a garage and a six year old and I cleaned and oiled it to perfection. These older machines often have a superb straight stitch, either because that is all they do, or because they have a much narrower opening in the throat plate for the swing of a zig zag – both of which contribute to a more secure and reliable straight stitch. Once of course you have experienced the potential of vintage attachments you might find it handy to have an older machine set up ready to use them – many sewists do this with the buttonhole attachments.

Favourite vintage sewing machine attachments and how to use them

What follows here is not a definitive guide to all older sewing machine attachments, but a list of those that might be most useful to the modern sewist, sewing the clothes we wear today. References to other sources on the subject are included in the bibliography.

Note many of these feet work by exaggerating the natural action of the feed dogs, either by pressing the fabric into them to force pick up as in the case of the shirring foot, or to use stitch length to form tiny pleats that look like gathers or mini pleats in the ruffler.  

Others are essentially elaborate devices to hold or set up fabric so it can be stitched with greater control, accuracy and regularity than is possible by a sewist operating free hand. The edge stitcher, narrow hemmer and adjustable hemmer fall into this category.

Finally a few other attachments are template driven mechanisms in themselves that actually move the fabric with precision under the needle, enabling highly accurate stitching of complex functional and decorative embroideries like monograms, motifs and of course the legendary template buttonholes, yet to be surpassed in quality by even the most expensive modern computerized machines.

Of the feet listed here the narrow hemmer, binder and ruffle are still manufactured and sold for contemporary machines. Of these only the ruffler, and some of the narrow hem feet made now, are the same as their vintage counter parts. (Modern binders are quite less sophisticated). All the other attachments listed here exist only in their vintage form – all excellent examples of “lost technology.”

Note although some of these attachments can just be attached just like any other presser foot some of the more complex ones with a lot of movement – the ruffler, buttonholer and monogrammer as examples – need to be both screwed onto the needle bar as well as having a stabilizing fork hooked over the needle screw. I find it always easier to fit this fork over the screw first and then screw on the rest of the attachment. 

Attachments will moving parts, like the ruffler and buttoholers also benefit from the occasional oiling with only a drop of oil at any points where you see metal moving against metal. 

Vintage sewing attachment project

As those who follow my Instagram will know we have been traveling a lot the last month. Much of it has been around Texas, right now I am in Mission/McAllen on the Mexico border.

It has all been a great opportunity to see many things first hand and to see a lot of incredible wildlife. However the sewing conditions have been variable. I have done some sample/muslin type sewing and considerable planning for when I am home in April and go back into high gear.

However I have been able to get some writing and editing done. I have been editing a bit for other folks and pulling together a project I have had in the back of my mind for a free ebook for a while.

I am not sure how many people will be interested in this but I want to share some thoughts in how-tos for vintage sewing attachments.

My idea is that every few days or so I post a section and you can give me some feedback (I always need an editor). When we have done that process I will put it together in a little booklet and see about making it available as an ebook.

What do you think?

To start with here is the idea for a cover. Obviously the Canva watermark will be removed if I decide to do something similar to this.

The introduction should be up tomorrow.

Thanks for your help!

The changing world of patterns

I am starting this post with a picture from from Vogue's new spring collection.

Now where do we start with this one? 

Anyone have an iron? 

Look at those hems. Look at that unpressed tie. Look at where the shoulders fit, or rather don't, on this poor girl who has every right to be as fed up as she looks.

I mean who in their right mind would wear this get up but more to the point, this was something that was sewn! What would you think if you had made this and this was what you saw in the bathroom mirror when you went to try it on?

It's time we all faced the new reality. 

The pattern companies, the Big Four are just not what they once were. A lot of things aren't anymore of course. I am OK with that, and with change. You can't expect some for profit company, or in this case companies, to just continue to knock themselves out because we find it so reassuring to have access to the resources we are used to.

This month the Big Four, yes that's right all the large pattern companies, were bought by one British outfit that sells wrapping paper and greeting cards. Clearly the pattern companies are loosely related in a retail, they might be sold in similar stores sort of way, but the pattern companies are just another commodity, a line in this context.

Under this new system don't be expecting any revisions of those nutty pattern instructions that tell us still to staystitch knit necklines and sew all T shirt seams twice on a straight stitch. 

Don't be expecting and revisions to the sizing charts that still think some women have 32" hips or that a woman's waist is always 10" smaller than her bust. 

And don't be expecting all four pattern companies (and we should probably also include New Look, Kwik Sew and probably printed Burda into the mix as they would be included in the sale) to be maintained as separate identities, approaches to clothes or levels of complexity. 

And don't be expecting someone with taste to come into work at the pattern department any time soon either.

The way I see it if they have unplugged the irons at Vogue all bets are off. 

Now don't get me wrong. 

Some of my favourite TNTs came from the Big Four. Just not lately. I used to be beside myself with excitement when I got an email that a new season's patterns were out (but the way Butterick hasn't released a new collection since the fall) but now when I get around to having a look, all I can think of is who would wear that?

It's not really that they dropped the ball.

The times just caught up with companies that produced masses of paper patterns and shipped them out to stores who would pull them from the catalogues four times at least a year and dump those "discards" in the garbage, or ship them back to the company. 

It takes a lot of women sewing, and a lot of sewing/fabric brick and mortar stores, and a lot of not having any other options to sustain a system like that.

And that environment just doesn't exist anymore.

I have had some early indicators on this whole situation.

 F+W Media, who owned Burdastyle, Interweave Press, Sew News and a bunch of other well known enterprises, went into bankruptcy this year. I was actually, without knowing it, one of their creditors. I got a letter in the mail every month all last year or so saying that I was on the list to get paid but don't hold my breath. 

I had recorded a series of Burdastyle webinars a couple of years ago and I was supposed to be paid something every time someone took the course. That hadn't happened in so long I sort of forgot about it.

Burdastyle was recently picked up by a holding company of some kind. I noticed as a result that they were remaking the website in a more commercial way - with prominent add to cart icons for example.

I also noticed that for many of the patterns, information that was really useful to me, and was always on the old site, like technical line drawings, yardage requirements etc. was missing.

Now you know with any pattern, but particularly with those weirdly posed Burda fashion shots, if you can't see the line drawing you really don't know anything you need to know about that pattern.

So I wrote them to say, more or less, what's up with that?

This morning, to their credit, I got a nice email back saying they have recently changed hands and it will take a while to get things up and running again, and offering me 10% off a pattern.

I am wondering now if that too is going to be another company that won't be giving me the patterns I want to sew.

Now this is not all a complaint. 

Pattern companies are not sewing. Needs change and really was throwing out all those paper patterns a good idea?

A person has to keep up.

I have a funny story to tell on this. 

When I was in Berkeley my DIL, who I really love, was getting ready in the morning and we realized we were out of coffee. I went into my Nova Scotia MIL routine and said immediately write me a list, I will go to the store for you, and bring back whatever you need. 

"No it's OK," she said." I have an app."

And she did too, ordered all the groceries with one hand on her phone. Done in 10 minutes. Everything was at the door by lunch, meat in ice packs even which we left outside with the boxes for them to pick up and recycle, being in Berkeley of course. 

Now this got me to thinking, once I had absorbed there was a mother-in-law app, how marvellous this was. I thought of my 92 year old mother in Winnipeg, of my own mother-in-law who needs to wait for someone to take her shopping, of the tired babies I see at the grocery stores at 9:00 on weeknight.

Keeping up is a good thing.

Which made me think that all changes are like coins, you turn them over and there is the opposite on the other side. My DIL is a very child centred person. Her app gives her more family time.

And the fading away of the pattern companies of my sewing life has been balanced by the direct and personal contact with Indie pattern designers. Ironically the end of something big has made room for something, many things, smaller.

And some of those Indies are really great - far more responsive, and dependent on good reviews actually, than the Big Four. Yes we have all sewn some real Indie duds but I notice those operators tend not to be around any more and there are many that are just so good.

 Stylearc, Jalie, Lovenotions, Megan Neilsen (mostly), Liesl and Company, the list keeps growing. Copy shop printing has liberated many of us from pdf taping and it's nice to work with good paper too.

So now, over to you.

What are your feelings about the changes in the pattern industry?

Flypaper thoughts back in the state park editon

• Back at the campsite in the Florida state park after a great week in Berkeley
• It's taken me a couple of visits to get into the Berkeley groove
• But I think I am there now
• It is a place for gardeners
• And folks writing novels that don't require completion
• For shrub pruners
• And ferment makers
• For doctorates and migrants
• For non-conformity as ordinary
• The only thing I did not see there
• Was a human in a suit
• Anyone power walking
• Or a briefcase
• I did see
• A store that sold only typewriters
• Like the Royal down the basement at home
• Gluten free bread made with ethically sourced oat milk
• Worried four-year-olds asking if the weiners were vegan
• "Read the labels sweetie, remember Mommy said read the labels"
• I saw a blinding white painted high school in the sun
• And teenagers indifferent to walking home in paradise
• Not knowing they had been brought up on dessert
• As if they didn't know that not everywhere has Crème Brulee for breakfast
• So much natural beauty in California it knocks me out
• It's like a drink where all the sugar has settled to the bottom
• And someone lives there
• I saw End Homelessness spray painted on the dome of a synagogue
• And everyone smiled at me
• No need to hustle when there is room to be anyone you are
• I saw elderly women in the fabric store in knitted berets and wearable art skirts
• Holding forth with authority among bolts of linen
• Artists improve with age
• Don't they know that everywhere?
• I saw older women lead not follow behind
• I drank cappuccino and opened my laptop
• Like everyone else
• Working on that novel I guess
• I dropped sustainable crumbs on my keys while I search fabric sites
• Sort of my novel
• But more than that
• I spent wonderful hours with a wonderful child
• Hours looking at the birdies
• And examining the rocks
• At 66 I met my 1 year-old soul mate
• Who would have thought?
• Who would have thought?
• I hope you all know that at any time
• Life can mail you a great gift
• The trick is to never not believe it won't happen
• Yes I know all those days you trudge to the mail box
• Thinking nothing there is what it is now
• But the intermission is just that
• The best can always come
• The trick is understanding that life is generous
• With a timetable still at the printers
• But that doesn't mean 
• You can't wait for the birdies
• They always come

Flypaper thoughts Berkeley edition

• Landed in Florida and now doing a week in Berkeley helping out with my granddaughter
• My DIL is at a reunion
• Berkeley is the easiest place in the world to dress in
• Walked the baby in the stroller with what I had warm in my suitcase
• A beret and raincoat
• Cropped pants and Fair Isle socks
• Clunky shoes
• I asked the kid how I looked and she laughed
• However I felt the height of fashion
• Purple linen pants are the little black dress here
• Older women are unapologetic in Berkeley
• Unlike the lady my age on the plane who couldn't close her mouth
• The skin had been pulled too tight
• Women should be unapologetic everywhere
• Mother is a verb not a noun
• Love being able to help out
• We are down the street from the Berkeley Academy of Bull fighting
• Which if you have trouble finding it is across the street from the Socratic elementary school
• Half a block from the Herbal Apothecary and soap making classes place
• Which is next door
• Dropped by a fermentation bar yesterday
• We were running low on Kombucha
• Picked up some fermented lime pickle
• So excited about that
• Time to get fermenting in the RV
• One more week in Florida then off to Texas via New Orleans
• But first I have some fabric shopping to do here
• In Florida we get to see my dad's best friend
• A man who laughs so hard when we tell dad stories that he can hardly talk
• They used to live across the street from us
• The kids waved to each other in the morning
• Picture window to picture window
• Now that whole family comes down for March break
• Next year for sure
• The Texas situation is TBD on my son's work anyway
• Do you know that my dad's first name was Norval
• You can't make this up
• He wished we could
• His dad had a drugstore and he named my dad after the president of the company that was his best seller
• Yup. Modest sanitary napkins
• My grandfather called my dad Skip 
• No wonder
• And no surprise that my father was known best for his sense of humour
• What was the choice I ask you?
• Off to settle someone for their nap

Flypaper thoughts South Carolina edition

·      One week into our annual trip south

·      Have used up my data looking at patterns on the road

·      Or searching for style ideas for my new style

·      I am always looking for my new style

·      Currently I am working on one called

·      Whatever is still clean

·      My husband gets texts from my son

·      They share podcasts on the intelligence of mushrooms

·      Do you know that a mushroom fed oatmeal designed the  Tokyo subway system?

·      Don't feel bad a lot of people don't

·      I can send you the link

·      How could I have not have heard of this before?

·      Discovered the state park we are in in South Carolina has a snowbird monthly rate

·      For December, January, and February

·      Explains the Canadians

·      Folks in shorts and T shirts

·      Identifiable next to the locals in wool hats and gloves

·      Woman a few sites over is delighted to find out that the person in her next site

·      Lives on the same street as her cousin's uncle's sister

·      Back home in Moncton

·      I am in constant contact with my own network

·      I get texts of pictures of the snow storms

·      News my niece and her sweetheart

·      Who is also my son-in-law's nephew

·      Are moving into my basement

·      You would think I was from Moncton

·      My husband is in his element

·      He runs this rv like it is his own submarine

·      When I step in here it is more like enlisting

·      Things are stowed, not put away

·      I am seeing a lot of walking around with power tools

·      And a happy guy

·      Man loves his activities

·      Bought himself a vintage sewing machine yesterday in a thrift shop

·      It was $8.00 because it was broken

·      He actually took it apart and fixed it right there in the store

·      Attracting attention of a few older men

·      I went to look at glassware

·      I hear there is such a thing as food grade anti-freeze

·      Don't panic

·      But I am not kidding

·      He brings me dinner on a tray when I am writing

·      Every rv has a dog

·      Some have three

·      I lie happily in my bed here in my sub under the stars

·      And feel I am sleeping in a colony of dogs

·      Accompanied by their drivers

·      I shower in the bath house

·      With the other Canadians

·      Thrilled we don't walk there in snow

·      The sound of the shower in the rv worries Daisy

·      Sometimes it takes 15 minutes for the water to get hot

·      But I have the time

·      And when I walk back in the dark I look at the stars

·      And hear the dogs snoring