To all you sewing lot...

haha, yes - that's a very good point - 'it's fine until it's not'. I'm accepting of the quality not being too durable, and will look to replace/enhance anything shonky looking straight away. Add better bolts/washers/bushings etc to improve stress management through the moving parts would extend the life and ease of use.

I'll take a look and see if I can figure out the power draw of the Pfaff 1222 - it can't be massive, but probably worth checking against a modern servo motor ...it's got a filament bulb in, which is probably the equivalent of a whole room of LED lighting on a boat though?!

Nice, getting the panels symmetrical is key. For me, trying out a pattern was night and day for understanding some steps, like a double layed yoke. Take a look at https://shop.fehrtrade.com/collections/digital-sewing-patterns/products/surf-to-summit-top-mens

Best cycling pattern I've come across.

Oh that's a good one, was planning on using this pattern but might buy that to compare.

https://www.shelbyoutdoor.com/?cPath=405_436_486

Their tutorial for the full zip is brilliant regardless of which pattern I use, I've been studying my cycling jerseys but seeing it step by step has cleared some stuff up.

I've replaced the bulb in my elderly Singer 99K with an LED, mainly because the shade was getting hot. If memory serves, a BA15D was a match for the existing socket - not sure what the Pfaff would need - more than adequately bright and uniform for my amateurish efforts. Just take care to specify 12V or 240V ...

For construction of garments get yourself a copy of Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing. Make sure you get the 1970-something edition, not the newer one.

There's a 1997 version on eBay, seems to be a reprint of the '76 version. With the newer one you mean the 2010 one?

I hope so as I've just ordered it.

Hey all. Sewed heavyweight PVC for the first time (for lining a basket tote) yesterday and absolutely hated working with it. What else are people using for (effectively) waterproof lining that isn’t so heavy or stubborn to manipulate into shape? Thinking a good quality ripstop maybe? Thanks.

Experimented with hypalon back when I used to make bags, pricey though and has some of the same drawbacks (heavy)

Ripstop is showerproof at best, and once the outer fabric becomes saturated and sitting on/touching it, water will get through pretty quickly.

I would try a lightweight laminate of some kind.

Some of the lighter Corduras? Or no-brand nylon like this? https://www.extremtextil.de/en/nylon-210den-pu-coated-130g-sqm.html You'd have to find a UK supplier, but PU coated and 100-150 g/sqm should be fine? This has a 5000mm water column, the ExtremTextil customer service recommended it to me as a drawcord collar and it's been perfect for that.

I bought a Juki 5410N-7 yesterday, I believe I got a good deal at €890 and then the ATM even gave me a €50 bill extra, or both me and the seller miscounted which seems unlikely, effectively €840 either way.

It's absolutely lovely to sew with, I could have done without the automatic features but especially the thread cutter is a big luxury. And the general effortless is amazing, I went from 1 to 15 layers of xpac without having to adjust tension, can't wait to start making bags with it.

Congratulations!

Oh yeah that looks perfect, hadn't considered just a lighter one could be available – doy. Thanks. Do you have any pics of the one you used after being sewn?

Also, just a thought but would anyone on this thread be interested in a Discord server for predominantly UK-based makers/sewers if I were to set one up? Have found the abundant wisdom in this thread very helpful for learning so far and have been thinking that the Discord structure could be pretty neat for this sort of stuff (eg. could be broken up into resource and suppliers lists, sewing machine troubleshooting, works in progress, finished projects, materials questions, etc) and might be easier to keep track of/engaged with. Let me know what you think

ok gonna do it anyway with a couple of friends who are also doing sewing stuff, if anyone here is keen just give me a shout.

and back with a new minor success, made a simple work apron for my grandma yesterday who’s still painting and making in her studio at almost 90.

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That's lovely! Discord sounds good too.

Thanks! Pleased with it, and slowly getting there with the edge binding - been such a learning curve getting it consistently neat and aligned. And ah that's great, I'll be sure to drop you a link when it's up and running.

I've never done Discord but I'd be keen to have a look.

Edge binding is the bane of my existence, I've ordered an attachment for the new machine and can't wait for it to show up. Supposedly the neatest way to do it is folding it open and sewing the edge on before folding it over and giving it a top stitch, but I've never had the patience for that.

@Chopsicle inspired me to try (what I later discovered to be) an overcasting foot and that helped a lot. It pushes the binding up against the edge of the fabric and the stitching stays straight too.

+1 for discord unless we can keep it here? Would be a shame to move nice people / knowledge etc from lfgss

Ah great, well I'll put a basic server structure together after work and drop the link here and anyone's welcome to join if they want. Should say I definitely don't mean this to sound like I'm trying to derail the thread or edge out the forum at all, was thinking of doing this more as a resource to accompany the thread and have found the structure of Discord really useful for stuff like this in the past - started one a while back for sourdough (used to work as a baker) with a couple of other friends and it's grown well and been really useful this year.

yeah @Tijmen I swear edge binding is some kind of dark magic, I'm using a generic attachment for my Janome as couldn't justify the swingaway one some people eg Mack Workshop recommend but maybe that's my problem, I don't know whether it's just shit quality but keeping the tape centered is a nightmare. Getting there slowly though.

here's mine btw, which have you ordered?

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I also couldn't justify buying the swing away binding attachment but have found this fixed version to be pretty good.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32918421828.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.200c4c4djwh8Ap

Takes a bit of time to set up but for hobby use it does the job ok.

Edit - posted at the same time as @merl
Interesting to hear it's not working so well for you - it took some initial set up to work out the best mounting holes but I've found it works well positioned very close to the foot. The only difficulties I've had have been sewing round tight corners but I think that's more to do with my bad technique than the binding attachment.

snap!

This is very helpful. What foot are you using? I think I've finally found a position that works okay with my machine, but the 1" tape (definitely the correct width for the attachment) just always wants to slip down/around, usually so there's more underneath than on top.

Personally I would prefer not to add Discord to the mix, I don’t participate in social media or zoom/skype/discord type things.