Boy Can I Shop!

Okay, so we all know I'm a confessed book-aholic don't we ;)? Well it should come as no surprise that I have been merrily buying up [what must seem to my poor Hubby] the world's total supply of sewing notions, gadgets and supplies!

I could say here that I've lately been on an unprecedented shopping binge... but that wouldn't be very honest of me. Let us just say that lunch-hours + online shopping = ↑ sewing stash building, but also = ↓ bank-account funds (haha).

Though, to be fair I don't drink, smoke, have any pets/kids or go out partying (otherwise when would I have time to sew?), soooo I'm pretty much free to fritter away my hard earned wages on my pleasurable pastime as and when I see fit. This does not however mean I don't enjoy a good bargain. In fact I bloody well love hunting down the best and cheapest places to buy whatever book or gizmo that has inflamed my sewing passions. So much so, that it is not unknown for me to spend a disproportionate of time searching page after page on Google in order to buy whichever special thingie I've decided I simply cannot live without at that given moment in time, I've even bought stuff from Japan (but more on that later LOL!).


So, I thought I'd share a few photos of some acquisitions from the last few months with you :).

First off, I've purchased some great value items from Sew-Classic based in the USA and they have very reasonable shipping costs to the UK! Plus, when you purchase from them you can add a free PDF download to your basket, the file is a really handy 'Sewing Machine Cleaning & Adjusting Booklet'

Walking Foot

Walking Foot (also know as an 'Even Feed Foot') to fit my high-shank Novum Deluxe IX vintage sewing machine (sometimes also known as a 'Novum New Mark IX'). It was a measly $11.95 (yup only £7.27 - way cheaper than I've found in the UK).

The instructions were somewhat fiddly to understand! But after MUCH swearing and muttering under my breath and 20mins of sweaty fingers later... I got it on and working - with lots of help from page 108 in the 'Sewing Machine Attachment Handbook'!! Once I'd gotten then knack of it, it then only takes me 30 seconds to get it on (yay!). I've not tested it out on any fabric yet. But, turning the handwheel it makes all the correct movements to feed the fabric evenly top and bottom through the sewing machine - so this should be great for when I finally tackle sewing with knits (T-Shirts here I come LOL!).
 

Feed Cover Plate - Universal (for use with my vintage Buttonholer Attachment)

Last year I bought myself a vintage 1970's Singer Buttonholer attachment (untested as yet - but it came complete in it's original box plus manual, and with all of the templates present and correct). Now, what I didn't realise at the time was that in order to work the feed dogs (those little lines of metal teeth on the needle plate of the sewing machine which grab onto the fabric and move it steadily and evenly through the sewing machine as you stitch) need to be covered up with a special cover-plate, so that they don't move the fabric anymore. The buttonholer attachment works buy moving the fabric around to create the machine-stitched buttonhole.

These are the Singer Feed Cover Plate part numbers from page 28 of my manual:

• Feed Cover Plate #507661: Replaces the throat plate of Touch & Sew zig-zag sewing machines with magnetic throat plates.
• Feed Cover Plate #161825: Replaces the throat plate of Touch & Sew and Slant-O-Matic zig-zag sewing machines with elevator throat plates.
• Feed Cover Plate #86748: Covers the zig-zag throat plate of vertical-needle zig-zag sewing machines.

Unfortunately, the machine I want to use the buttonholer with is my vintage Novum, i.e. not a Singer, and therefore the manual only has suggestions for special singer needle plates that cover the feed dogs - NOT helpful to me.

However, browsing the Sew-Classic store last week I noticed they had a universal feed cover plate for $6.99 (which is like £4.25 GBP!!), ermm how could I not buy it?

And well - it fits! It's yet to be tested alongside the buttonholer - but I'm hopeful it'll perform it's duties admirably.

Screws: Needle Plate, Presser Foot Thumbscrew (for screwing feet onto shank)

And, because I have a tendency to loose fiddly little bits from things (this is when I end up dismantling them to clean them), I picked a few of these up whilst I was at it too. The needle plate screws were $0.89 each, the thumbscrew $0.99 (54p and 60p respectively).

Then, from my local branch of Wilkinson (and I wasn't even looking for sewing stuff honest!) I picked up these:

Wilkinson's: Sleeve Board, Carpet Protector, Rulers

The sleeve board £5.50 ($9.00 USD) has a metal mesh base to allow the steam to flow through, and it folds down pretty flat - so I might try to hang it on the wall to stow it away. I might even change the foam layer they've put under the cotton cover for some natural cotton wadding/batting in my stash - as I think it'll perform better during pressing. 

The clear vinyl carpet protector £4.00 ($6.60) is to help stop my dark carpet getting trashed with threads and tiny scraps of fabric, it should make it easier to sweep up all my mess :) The small 15cm/6 inch rulers... weeeellll they were only 10p each ($0.16) and I am ALWAYS loosing them, so the more the merrier haha!

Finally... a Sneeky Peek

Here's a sneeky peek of my literally biggest recent purchase - all 7.7kgs (17lbs) of it! I'll give you a clue - it's 91cm wide, and is very, very, very long (in this case size does certainly matter hehehe).

This was flippin' heavy to carry home on the train and bus when it was delivered to me a work I can tell you!