Categotry Archives: words

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LIEBSTER

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Whoa! Detective Houndstooth nominated me for a blog award, and apparently that’s the only criteria. It’s a typical Nhi move, I swear, she is such a nice lady and I don’t say that lightly. She’s always offering help and extending invitations, but she stops short of Pollyanna. She even brought me a stash of plastic shopping bags from the  Anyhoo: LIEBSTER AWARD!

Liebster Award

QUESTIONS FROM NHI

So here are Nhi’s silly questions with my silly answers:

1) Serger thread vs sewing thread, who would win in a bare knuckle fight?

A: 6,000 yd for $2? Serger thread FTW! I also wrote a blog post about how I use cone thread on my sewing machine. serger thread rainbow
2) What are you wearing? Geez people. Don’t make that question out to be creepy. It’s a sewing blog for goodness’ sake.

A: a new jersey tank which I just photographed, and my circus shorts, now dingy and covered in paint splatters.

3) If you were a fabric, which fabric would you be?

A: Mystique lycra

4) Which team are you on? Team Pins or Team No Pins?

A: I love yellow quilting pins for all projects.

5) If you were to invent any sewing notion, machine, accessory etc, what would it be? Yes, all your answers will be property of Detective Houndstooth and I will not share the millions I’ll be making from your my ideas.

6)Which sewing “rule”(s) do you enjoy breaking the most?

A: I rarely grade seams, and have only recently began with muslins.

7) Which takes you longer sewing an item or blogging about that sewn item?

A: Definitely blogging, because it requires me getting gussied up, the right lighting, and either an available tripod or a willing husband.

8) How many times have you sewn a sleeve into a neckline? Common be honest, we’re all friends here.

A: Never! But when I’m sewing a button-down shirt I often sew the front pieces on backwards, so that the plackets would be at the side seams.

9) If you were to come up with a fictitious sewing pattern line that would be nominated for “Most Likely to Fail”, what would it be? Ex. Hats patterns for your cactus.

A: It would be useless household items have faces embroidered on it.

10) Truth or Myth: Stashes multiply like Gremlins if you get water on them?
A: That’s whiskey you’re thinking of.

 

My Questions:

1) What do you think is just a crazy thing to sew yourself?

2) What craft technique do you struggle with?

3) If budget and practicality weren’t an issue, what would you most like to make?

4) Do you detest any sewing techniques?

5) What tool was the biggest dud?

6) How has the reality of sewing related to your expectations?

 

BLOGS I SUGGEST:

Nhi nominated all our local sewing friends, so I’ve had to dig deep in my blog collection.

1) Having Horns

2) Lisa at Small Things

3) Hannah at Knick Knacks and Rick Rack

4) Aline at Lazy Linchen

5) Caroline at Tiger Feet

6) Beastwares

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REPLACE Pfaff pedal

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Every once in a while I’d have an issue with my Pfaff 1222E. It usually happened when I was sewing curtains. Heavier fabric, long straight seams, pressing on the control pedal consistently for 10 foot hems. When I took my foot off the pedal the machine would keep sewing! Even more distressing, it would speed up like a little German devil. The only way to stop the madness was to hit the power button.

I’m not the only one who occasionally got a runaway sewing machine. It’s scary, and seemed like an expensive fix. The foot pedal and power outlet are on the same plug, and this part costs $80+ on Ebay! But my wiring was fine, it was just the pedal that was going nuts.

I tried to repair the pedal, but when I opened it up a tiny little resistor cracked and fell off. I confirmed with my electrical-genius friend that this was probably the problem, but we couldn’t really think of an easy way to fix this. The solution seemed to be replacement! (Another solution can be to clean lint out of the pedal, but that wasn’t my problem this time).

Inside the pedal

Inside the pedal

When you press on the pedal, this spring is what's moving.

When you press on the pedal, this spring is what’s moving.

There should be a tiny black bump on the left of the gold piece.

There should be a tiny black bump on the left of the gold piece…

I tried to find the same Pfaff pedal ($80+ online), or at least a white one, but in the end I bought a Singer from the 80s for $15 and just cut off the pedal. Stripped the wires on the Singer and Pfaff pedals, and spliced them together. It works great now! Brian has created a video documenting his process, but it really is as easy as that!

pfaff pedal

Next time we have the soldering iron out I’ll do a proper join of the wires with heat shrink, but for now the electrical tape is working super fine.

A perk of this is that I cut the Pfaff wire near the pedal, and the Singer wire near the plug, so the resulting spliced wire is really long! This means I can run both wires behind my table and still pull the pedal out as far as I want.

If you have any questions about this machine, check out the comments on my earlier post. You can read tips and feedback from people who have used this machine for decades, from people who know a lot more about it than I do, and people who have just acquired one of these machines. And it’s the #2 Google hit when you search the Pfaff 1222e – amazing!

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