Sewing / Clothes / Bags/Pouches / DIY Fabric stuff

[shellfritsch]

so grateful my mom taught me to sew when i was very young. such a useful bit of knowledge.
two of my favorite sewing tools:

the “speedy stitcher” / a handheld awl with internal bobbin. used with thick waxed thread for heavy duty repairs.

my treadle powered sewing desk from the late 1800s. i wanted to be able to sew outdoors in the woods
when i found it on craigslist the thing was completely seized up from the internal lubricant solidifying. i had to fully disassemble the internal workings and soak it all in solvent. it was fascinating to learn how it all worked. in the end i got it running very smoothly. i loooove the sound of a treadle and the rhythm of how it works.

i also got really into knitting at one point and am very proud to say i learned how to knit socks! i was so slooowww at it though.

[equipoise]

The speedy stitcher saved my bacon several times offshore with my old set of sails - it can sew from only one side of the sail if you pass the thread across initially as a bobbin, and that’s a killer feature for quick repairs on a large piece of fabric. I love it!

That treadle machine is pretty slick. They’re quite heavy and awkward though (since the table is part of it), but if you’ve got a place to keep one, it’s so neat to see a machine that doesn’t need anything more than a gentle and careful motion of the body.

[speakerdamage]

I intend to make more of an effort this year to learn knitting from my mom. so far my biggest issue - putting aside my usual desire to make music with the free time that I have - is finding the ‘correct’ (ie my own) tension level. went to NY Sheep & Wool fest last year with the whole family and loved it. highly recommended for anyone in the area (~8 hour drive for us).

[Rodrigo]

And I finished my cymbal divider thing too.

I had to get an overcast foot to finish the edges, since I didn’t want a hem to add bulk to the many layers of fabric. It was a bit scary finishing the edges with it, particularly the thinner, more delicate fabrics, but in taking my time and hand turning the machine around the corners, I was able to get some nice lines.

It was really hard to stitch through all those layers without it sliding around (I had to pull all the stitches from my first and second attempts since it was sliding around). In the end I used these fat paper binder clips to keep it all in place, and that did the job while I sewed it together in stages (a straight stitch to hold the “inner” layers in place, then a zigzag to hold the inner layer to the back layer, then another straight stitch to create a seam point to fold the outer wrap on, and finally a straight stitch all the way around to keep it all together).

[rbxbx]

@speakerdamage

NY Sheep & Wool fest

I had no idea this was a thing! Sounds amazing. Trying to convince my sister (the real textile arts person of the family) to come to town for it this year.

Thanks for the heads up!

[wheelersounds]

Thought I would share my most recent jacket; been sewing them for years and giving them away to friends. Considering making them a little more “finished” and trying to sell them on the side but I’m not sure yet…

Edit: Also, here’s my little satchel, sewn from a skirt my friend didn’t want any more. I find it really handy for keeping things organized inside my bag. Next goal is something with a zipper!

[dailybells]

Lots of cool stuff in this thread!

We’re doing a kind of knitting theme for my band’s tour in a couple months. I’ll be knitting on stage with some metal needles hooked up as capacitive touch points to a raspberry pi, my bandmate will be wearing a ramshackle knitted mask I’m working on now with a bit of conductive yarn woven in, I’m knitting a simple wrap for my trombone and other little scraps of knitting with conductive yarn worked in… I’m not good enough to knit real garments yet but I’m looking for some second-hand cardigan or something as well…

But my question for other knitters: I’m thinking of including piles of unruly yarn in the setup – does anyone know of a good source of bulk yarn? I patronize my local yarn shop but it’s pretty expensive. My cousin has a thing to spin yarn from raw wool but I don’t know how to use it and I don’t need to tack on another project so close to our first show.

The yarn will eventually either get used or donated to the yarn shop near us, but it doesn’t matter much what the material is…

Any leads on go-to sources for cheap bulk yarn?

(I’m also on the lookout for another source of conductive yarn besides adafruit!)

[Rodrigo]

Last time I was in Manchester I found some 3mm felt fabric at a craft store and bought a couple of colors to bring home and start testing with.

I’m glad I just bought some regular stuff at the store, rather than mail ordering stuff, as I was initially going to go with something much thicker (like what @marcus_fischer mentioned/showed earlier in the thread) but the 3mm stuff feels sturdy enough, for what I have in mind for a monome/arc case.

I made some very rough sketches for a kind of ‘slide in sleeve’ that would hold both the grid and arc in via friction (though still using some kind of strap).

At first I just tested out different stitches and machine settings on the felt, both as single and double layers:

Some tests obviously went better than others…

In the end, I liked this multi-pass zigzag stitch (it probably has a real name).

In my initial sketch I over compensated for the amount of space needed, hence making a second row of stitches just to snug it up some more:

The actual design will just have one row on the edge, so this was just to ‘take it in some’ so its snugger. I also want to see how much the felt gives in over time, so going to leave the grid/arc in it for a couple of weeks to see.

My plan is to have the arc just slide in nearer the open edge:

I also experimented with some overcast stitches to see if I wanted to ‘finish’ the edges of the felt. Still not sure if I will do it or not as these stitches don’t look as nice on felt as they do on fabric. (I really love the look on the cymbal divider I posted earlier):

Lastly, I plan on having some kind of strap closure. I have some 1" vinyl strap (that @Angela wants to use for a fanny pack!) which might be it, along with some velcro to close it:

I also experimented with using some regular straight stitching to help make a cleaner “fold” along the bottom of the pouch.

So a good first experiment. Quite promising overall. I’ll make another go at it with adjusted measurements next time I’m working on it and see how that goes. It’s also a really fast build, so I can iterate over it easily enough, and a big felt sheet that gives me more than enough for a single build is like £3.50.

[TomWhitwell]

I love this thread…

[bgc]

When i was younger (early twenties…) i used to make my costumes (mostly just face covers).

I made a panda head from a material similar to the one used by stuffed animals, and a felt dinosaur head.

All very simple and crude. Din’t have good tools.
But the processes was relaxing. Made me feel really calm.

[polaskya]

Here is a cable bag that I made a week or so ago to try and keep myself a little more organized. I used to sew cycling caps as a side job while I was in college so getting back on a machine was super nice.

[setfield]

It’s a blast on so many levels. From sheep shearing demos to tons of fiber to shop to lamb sandwiches. We live 6 miles down the road and look forward to it every year!

[nonsmeddy]

@equipoise, your info might just save a project of mine.

That’s the muslin for a coat that I wanted to make badly¹ enough to translate the pattern & instructions from Japanese (shoutouts to Google Translate and Wiktionary!). I’ve made some pillows, dress shirts, pants, hoodies, tote bags with upholstery fabric and 18oz canvas, but I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time, so this was foolhardy ambitious. Also I somehow got the idea that changing the bobbin tension was, like, a normal everyday thing…

The fabrics I chose for the coat were thicker than I anticipated and I shelved it after breaking two needles in quick succession and having a piece of the second one fall into the guts of the machine. I’ve been scared to sew anything since—there’s no repair shop near where I live—but this thread is encouraging that I might at least be capable of checking the machine for damage, deburring, etc. The coat may actually be impossible with the machine I have but at least then I can work on other stuff.

¹ I mean, I don’t want to make it badly, but I do want to make it badly.

[equipoise]

Nice muslin!

If you are breaking needles most likely you’re just using the wrong kind/size for the fabric. A machine shows trouble by either binding on the downstroke = not enouch power (binding on the upstroke is, again, a needle choice problem) or by clanking badly and making highly erratic feeding ( = the timing control structure flexes too much for the forces). There are probably other failure modes too but I haven’t personally encountered them in normal canvaswork.

That said, you should be able to sew even 8 layers of heavy jeans material on a normal sewing machine in exceptional circumstances (e.g. the corner of two hems) with a good runup and the right needle, so after you’ve fully checked your bobbin case and general bobbin tension (and left it there!), deburred any damage in the cap spring, strike plate, needle hook, etc. and ensured basic trouble-free operation on normal weight fabrics, do a little research on the material you are sewing and the appropriate needle for it (the point, thickness, whether or not it’s ribbed or has a thread channel, etc. will vary based on the material, Wikipedia’s page has some good info on needle types and usage).

It looks like you’re reasonably well versed in sewing, though if you’re making dress shirts and your stitch lines look pretty good! So forgive me if I’m telling you things you already know.

For references, I once sewed the entirety of a heavy denim kilt on an ordinary Kenmore home machine from the mid-80’s… machine “power” is more a factor of convenience, speed, and how much swearing you’re prepared to do than whether or not, in the end, it’s actually capable or not with the right guidance and setup. That said, it’s a lot more enjoyable to sew on a more powerful machine because you get interrupted far less and since you don’t need to exert so much careful control and force you can run smoother stitch lines in the trouble spots.

[Rodrigo]

A failed experiment.

After making some Drum Tortillas, I got the idea to make “Cymbal Donuts”(!).

I got some shit pillow fabric on clearance from IKEA and decided to use a single layer of that for this test (I initially wanted to do a two layer/insideout thing, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that with a donut/ring shape…)

Used some cymbal(-like thing)s to trace for the shapes:

It’d be silly not to use the owl eyes:

Sewn with an overcast foot:

(it was harder to do the ‘inner’ ring since I had to do it going the opposite direction of rotation on the machine. real awkward)

Finished product:

It actually sounds really good, but it just slides down the bell and gets in the way. I may be better off just making some Street Tacos…

[wheelersounds]

I wonder also about doing “prepared” street tacos, either with things inside that bounce around, or pieces of things sticking out of the sides… like a sizzle taco. And/or making tacos of different weights with heavier fabrics or sand.

[Rodrigo]

Man, now you’re thinking with portals…

I’ve been wanting to make/buy some "stack ring"-style junk stuff, but this could be attached to that as well. So it’s bits of cymbals and such, but with fabric/canvas.

[bmoren]

I recently made some waxed canvas portage packs which really maxed out my little machine. But, they work well and turned out pretty good!

now to load them up with synth gear for back country expeditions in the spring …

[equipoise]

Those (and your canoe) are gorgeous. Do you have plans for them? I’d be interested.

[bmoren]

The plans are to do as many boundary waters trips as possible this coming spring summer and fall to prep for the border route (a 2+ week trip) the following summer!

I wish that was my canoe! It was an outfitter, the Kevlar canoes are $$$$, but hopefully we can get on our own soon! They really are incredible to paddle, and so amazingly light! Amazing for portaging!