July | 2010 | fitzfabulous

Archive for July, 2010

Lousy zippers

I’m stuck on zippers. Can’t sew them in right, want something more substantial than a hand pick.

So I can’t finish this guy. Look at that (Markham thrift) dress! POCKETS!

There’s the layout. See the piece on the left with the rounded top? That’s a POCKET.

Dresses are usually so useless when it comes to pockets. So I get super excited when they come with.

Until I get the right zipper foot, I have a front, a back and straps all ready to go. I even cut the front neckline a little squarer than the sweetheart it already has.

Zippers…

But I love you, Stylist 776

The difficulty in finding feet to fit my darling Singer Stylist 776, the one I’ve been sewing on since, you know, 1990, is making me start to think it could be time to, um, get a new one.

This slant shaft foot from Hancock Fabrics didn’t quite fit. It screwed on, but didn’t sit straight and resulted in test stitches with incredibly uneven tension.

Internet searches are turning up feet that *look* like they’ll work but Stylist 776 isn’t among the listed machines they’ll fit.I’d happily pony up for a slant shank and some snap-on feet. I just want to know they’ll work on 776.

Stylist 776 never turns up. And that’s my concern.

Is it time to ask Santa for a new sewing machine?

Singer dressed me at dances throughout high school. It sewed tiny things for beloved new babies. And it made me a kickass gold wedding dress, too.

We’re old friends. I don’t want to just give up on him. He was made the year I was born. But I want to sew better, make higher quality things and I need help from things like real zipper feet to do that.

Sad.

2010: 07/11
CATEGORY: Help me
Sewed it
TAGS: foot
machine
problem
sewing
Singer
Stylist 776
zipper
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Foot fiasco

The dress I’m trying to finish this weekend – with POCKETS – is telling me it needs a zipper foot to do the back zip. I’ve tricked my machine into sewing zippers without a zipper foot, but I’ve been trying to improve the quality of sewing, so I want to try to do this right.

I pawed through a jumble of sewing machine accessories and found a mess of metal.

Look what I’ve been sitting on:

An adjustable hemmer foot that won’t fit my machine

Of the whole little box, these are the only things I can use

A cloth guide, Singer 25527.

All these years, I’ve been sticking masking tape to the machine to do this. And now I know what that random hole is for, too.

And a blind hemming guide

NO! I’ve resisted buying new sewing stuff all week. Ignored a giant JoAnn sale. Went into the Hancock to look at patterns and polished cotton and put it all back. And now I need a trip to the Vogue for a zipper foot?!

Right. Figures it doesn’t fit after a special trip. My trusty Singer Stylist 776 has a slanty shaft. When can I get to the Hancock to get the right size? And then where am I going to hide two yards of silver metallic silk?

2010: 07/05
CATEGORY: Hoarding it
Sewed it
TAGS: foot
hemmer
old
sewing
stash
zipper
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My garden is even glorious-er now

What with bursts of rain and heat. Stink tree’s constant rain of putrid pollen notwithstanding, it’s been a very gardeny sort of spring. And my pots survived some terrible storms. Or I would have cried for real.

The succulent bowl is back at it, replenished.