I recently bought a sewing machine off eBay. Two, actually. I don't have either one yet, but they are in the mill.
This has me fairly traumatized. I could use some advice.
I bought them with the idea of learning how to just make basic repairs. No big deal. Just to hem some jeans and some dog towels.
My current questions fall into two categories:
-- Room
I have a large basement room which has good illumination and electricity. It would be perfect except for the fact that it gets damp down there. Soggy type damp.
I also have a spare bedroom which is much smaller. It might be able to be made to work, but I don't see ever setting up any large table in there.
-- Projects
I think this will be the main bitch.
From what I can see, most of the sewing books / classes are related to making things with patterns. This is not where I am. I want to just learn how to put solid hems on doggie towels which have frayed edges. I *might* try to make him a vest later on, but not right now.
Not good. Your machine will be affected by the dampness. But you could put a cutting table down there.
I don't have a large sewing table in my house. I use either the dinner table or my bed for cutting.
Well, I guess you start with putting solid hems on doggie towels which have frayed edges. Sounds to me like it would be perfect practice for getting used to your sewing machine.
If you need suggestions on how to do a nice job, write back.
Any chance of unsoggying the basement to make it useable??? Without dehumidifiers, mine would be useless. I have two dehumidifiers in the basement (very large basement) to keep it dry. You can fix it so they drain outside somewhere or just empty the tanks. I empty mine but it has to be done once a day during the summer so you need to be a stickler about it. I would like to change them to drain outside since those tanks are getting to be a bit heavy for me. These tanks hold about 3 or 4 gallons of water each.
On the up side, my basement has a bedroom, full bath, carpeted playroom, big workshop, pantry and cedar storage closet that don't smell like a basement.
I used to have a sewing room on the upper floor and run down to the living room to cut. Kept me in good shape!
(I still cut in the living room, but it's on the same floor as the bedrooms now.)
You don't want to leave anything in the basement, but there's no reason you can't lay things out on a long table down there if you're sure you'll finish before they get damp.
My damp basement was quite dry at the top -- perhaps you can have a folding table that can be hung from the beams when you aren't using it.
ABRUPT CHANGE OF TOPIC
I adore the floor-to-ceiling shelves on the south wall of my sewing room. They are made by nailing "standards" to the studs, then sticking brackets into the standards and laying the shelves on the brackets -- which means that I can move them if I have a different configuration of stuff to put on them, and buy more any time I want them closer together.
[On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 23:45:12 GMT, joy beeson wrote:]
I'm convinced that I will never be able to have too many shelves. I'm a pack rat anyway, and I absolutely hate re-buying things I already have. The key is in being able to find things.
Neatly labeled files storage boxes and lots of shelves works pretty well for me. In theory it does, anyway.
The problem is in the "neatly labeled" part of that. I'm too cheap to ever throw anything away, so the boxes tend to get recycled. A box that says "Phone Parts" on it could contain almost anything.
What's really cute is when I try to hide something from the prospective burglars.
HA! If a burglar ever decided to look around in my work room he'd head straight for the nearest employment office to get a REAL job........I could be poster a poster for Scared Straight!!! ;-)
collection of padded mats for dog crates for my daughter, who is heavily involved in animal rescue. I just slogged through it all and discovered I could actually make the things, much to my surprise.
Dear Fred, Do you have any instructions for these padded mats or is there a site where I could get some? Thanx. Antoinette
I second every thing Fred has suggested as far as tools, except the machine needles. If the machine is a Singer, use Singer needles, but for other machines, I use Schmetz. Granted, they may be a bit more expensive, but well worth it to me, at least. Wal-Mart sells both kinds. Emily
I hope I can do even half as well as you seem to have.
I did order a couple books from Amazon. The very first thing I noticed in the Readers Digest guide was a discussion of ironing. Not exactly what I expected either. ;)
(I will say that the Readers Digest book looks to be
*wonderful*. It is almost unapproachably huge, but it looks to be huge for good reason -- as far as I can tell, nothing has been left out. The Simplicity book looks good also, but it does seem more oriented to working with patterns. If I could have only one, it would be the RD book.)
I like this.
In a way, it reminds me of my first experiences with cooking. I knew something about using a barbecue, but I'd always deferred to females in the kitchen. That proved to have been a mistake when I hit about age 40 or so and found myself needing to prepare meals for myself and my adolescent son.
I had no idea what to do. But you can only eat so many hamburgers.
I found the semi-instant meal mixes to be a great help at first. They won't make a gourmet dinner, but they do walk you through every step. The companies seem to put a lot of thought into making it easy for newbies. Add a sliced tomato and an onion, and off you go.
It wasn't long before I didn't need the boxes. I never liked them, but I owe them a lot. They were my way into the kitchen.
This brings something else to mind. In my ripe old age, I am increasingly aware of the importance of teaching both sexes of children all the skills they may need to survive. As many of those as you can, anyway.
We boys do need to learn to cook and sew, and you girls are better off if you know something about making carpentry and how to build a fire. This probably quite obvious to most people here, but I missed it for more years than I should have.
My poor dog is going to be my subject for the next year or so. He doesn't currently need rescuing, but he might soon.
This was a useful list. Thank you. I'll get to it a bit later on.
It's strange how much less trouble I have with my Elna since switching to Singer needles. From what I read, they're not supposed to fit my machine properly, but they're working much better than the Schmetz ones, which I'd used for about nine years. Bizarre.
Re Fred's advice on patterns, I think it depends on what patterns fit you. I started with Simplicity and found it very frustrating - their patterns simply don't fit me. But Vogue patterns do. I found Very Easy, Very Vogue no trouble at all.
BTW: what is a seam gauge? I don't think I have one of these :(.
One tool I've found endlessly useful is a Flexicurve, which is a bendy ruler that you can bend to make a smooth curve between two points. Very useful for necklines and armholes.
One other thing: this may not affect areas where electricity is cheap, but here in France it's all nuclear-generated (all fuel costs here are much higher than in the UK). My bills were through the roof until I started unplugging the iron when not actually using it - it was sucking down those units. I still leave the board and iron permanently set up, but unplug the iron when I'm at the sewing machine. If you have the type that automatically switches itself off, this isn't an issue, of course.
You must have one, Trish! It's the 6" long metal ruler, with points on each end, and a slot in the center through which the red pointy thing moves. You use it to measure widths, usually, but it's very useful for a lot of things.
This doesn't make any sense to me. Nuclear energy is supposed to be MORE economical, not less!
I wasn't going to get into that with her. The discussion of airplanes seemed far enough off-topic.
Then again, she did start this one. I'm innocent. (So far, at least.)
For now, let's just say that the only things the French have gotten right in the past several hundred years are our constitution and the Citroen DuChaveuax.
Just which one of those is the better is open to debate.
This is a common misconception, promoted by --- you guessed it!!! The Power Guys!!! Look at what we are going through now in the U.S. with nuclear waste. The waste is a part of the expense of production, and we are going to be paying big time for that for as long as the rivers run.
Well, someday I'll have to visit. (Consider that a threat.)
To be slightly more serious than I was in my previous message, one of the many mistakes I've made was in buying into the national stereotypes of the French when my first wife and I traveled to Europe right out of college. That was back in
1889.
We camped.
That was when I first became acquainted with the Deux Chevaux. They were everywhere in the campgrounds. In every country we visited, driven by everyone. I used to marvel at the way the wheels cant to one side when they're turned. The canvas pull-back tops...
Remarkable little cars. I've wanted one ever since.
Anyway, fools that we were, we unscrupulously attempted to avoid France. But the one night we spent there (that was somewhere up in the northeast corner) was one of the most enjoyable times we spent anywhere.
It probably didn't hurt that I could speak a little French at that time (not no more, obviously). But no one was ever friendlier or more courteous to us than the people we met there. I wish we had stayed longer. Frankly (so to speak), we could have spent our entire time in France.
Now, Italy, on the other hand...
Tell me: Is there anywhere that the average Italian male won't urinate, deface, or discard a used condom?
If there is, we couldn't find it.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa was particularly disgusting. Depressing, really. There are any number of public toilets in New York and San Francisco that are more pleasant to visit.
We cut that part of our itinerary somewhat short -- about a month short, give or take a week. We got as far south as Florence, and that was it.
And, no, I did not use my mother's pinkers to do the trimming.
That was what we had. A new one, in Willow Green. Overseas delivery (spoiled brats that we were back then).
I can honestly say that I've never owned a worse car.
Other than the Nissan -- one of which I've bought my daughter twice now (they're called "Sentra" models here), you seem to have a clear preference for cars that do not run. I think a Skoda deserves a place of honor in your stable of family vehicles.
Cars not running keeps the insurance rates down, I suppose.
The Citroen DS must be the ultimate graduate school of convoluted mechanics. Don't leave home without a full bottle of green hydraulic fluid.
Well, get one of those periodically rolling trashcans of yours over here sometime and visit the Napa Valley. Spring and autumn would be the best times of year for that. As you can probably imagine, it gets a bit warm in summer.
Do two things:
-- Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.
-- Stop by the Silver Oak winery.
There we go again.
You really don't want to know what goes into making Italian wines. Don't even think about it.
You tried very valiantly a couple times to steal the South's cotton and its tobacco.
You didn't decide it wasn't worth it. We won the first time and -- with some help from y'all Froggers -- we damn near won the second time.
Virginia is okay. I can't say much for its wines, but it is the heartbeat of what used to be America.
There is this big cruise ship -- I have my eye on it, myself. I made my first flight in over 15 years recently
- and was pleasantly surprised to find that I still get a real charge out of takeoff, and find myself rating pilots on their landings -- people don't understand that it isn't flying that I hate, it's being shut in that capsule where they won't let me open a window. Hence the interest in the aforementioned big ship - the flight to Europe, even the UK, is just too long.
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