Being about as practical as a rollerskate on a walrus, it will come as no surprise to many of you that mastering Paddy’s industrial sewing machine has proved a bit of a challenge for me.
That machine has an amazing ability to turn me into a swearing, sobbing, fabric munching, bobbin snagging monster. I don’t like it when i can’t do something and when something as simple as sewing a straight line flummoxes me, I become a very angry, frustrated little person.
But last weekend, I actually managed to complete something useful
Paddy quietly worked on his generator while I cursed and spat at the machine in an attempt to make drawstring bags to secure various bits and bobs onto the boat. It didn’t help that I’d left Paddy’s canvass-sewing-for-dummies book at home and that every ‘how to make a drawstring bag’ page on the internet started with “this is a great project for a child learning to sew” – and hardly any of them had pictures!
Now I like to think I am a reasonably smart person, but when it comes to reading technical stuff – I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. So when something that was supposedly so simple that a child could pick it up just wouldn’t compute at all, I started getting pretty shitty with myself. In the end Paddy took pity on me and helped me make the first one (admittedly after a fair bit of “I should be able to do this myself dammit!” protesting from me) and once I actually saw one physically done, it made much more sense to me, and the rest were much easier.
One of the cool things about canvas is that instead of cutting it, you melt it – which means you get to burn along the edges with a hot-knife (kind of like one of those poker machines you use to make pretty designs on money boxes in woodwork at school.)
- Burn baby burn!
Industrial sewing machines are quite grunty too – because they have to sew things like sails – so it was a wee while before I managed to master the art of the straight line…
…and was pretty proud of myself when I did!
Okay, so they are only small – but they are something useful, and I made them myself!
The next step is a little more complicated and I will be enlisting the help of a lovely friend of mine Jenn, who knows a little more about this sewing lark than I. We are going to get stuck into the cockpit cushion covers, which should be a challenge!
Unfortunately, after celebrating my success with the drawstring bags, I got a little cocky and tried to sew together a couple of lee cloths (basically a bit of netting that stops you rolling out bed when the boat gets a bit wobbly) but unfortunately and this point the sewing machine decided it didn’t want to play anymore and stubbornly refused to sew.
No matter what I tried it didn’t work and Dr Paddy ended up having to take a look under the bonnet.
When this didn’t work we both decided it was probably time to put the machine away before one of us threw it at something. When it still wasn’t working days later, Paddy was muttering about taking it back to the guy he brought it from and I was convinced I was jinxed and had destroyed the thing.
But on a flight to Auckland Paddy had a Eureka moment. He was reading the instruction manual on the plane (as you do…) and discovered that sometimes when sewing particularly thick material the machine’s timing can go a bit skewiff. The actual answer is much more technical but went in one ear and out the other – so I will leave it to Paddy to explain in the comments for anyone who is interested.
So I haven’t killed the machine, its sewing again and the big stuff is yet to come – will keep you posted.
Aparantly it is all quite simple. Being a type 15 sewing machine the timing is controlled by the spatial relatioship between the needle scarf and the Gib hook in the bobbin case. As the needle bar is only held in place by one (rathaer pathetic) grub screw when sewing heavy fabric the needle bar can move and alter the timing. A proper grub screw and reset the timing seems to fix it.
Wot he sed!