Going to the Backup...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Sew Random
The foot pedal on my primary New Home sewing machine had been doing some kind of weird things...getting kinda twisty when I used it. I thought a screw was loose but hadn't really taken time to look at it. Then, when I was sewing down the narrow hems on the Purity Blouse yesterday, this happened:



The welds popped! I guess that's not unreasonable for an 18ish-year-old machine, but I was surprised nonetheless to see that something that got as much stress as that foot pedal lever was held on with little welded dots. I tried using it without the lever, but that switch is very stiff and I could only get it to go by pushing Very Hard at Just The Right Angle. The result was that the machine roared along at an unbelievable...and unmanageable...speed. So I hauled out the backup Kenmore, ripped out the wild top stitching and finished out the blouse, finally.

So here's the finished product (and a glimpse of the New Hair). There really are three problems with this blouse, all of which are my issues at this point:
1) I need a square shoulder adjustment. Cynthia Guffey commented on my square shoulders in Atlanta this year; I need to just get into the habit of squaring that shoulder line on about everything. Dunno why I haven't figured this out before now.
2) I was scared it'd look tight so I added too much to the hips; that'll come off before I make it again.
3) The fabric, while sheer enough, isn't really drapey enough. A chiffon or georgette would drape...and skim...much better.

Anyway, you can read the details in The Review.

And My Sweet Baboo thinks he can put a couple of screws into the foot pedal to make it useful again...

I'm off to trace and cut today!