Christmas break

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Singer Tension Assembly Fix

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This post is kind of technical and specific to certain machines. However I could not find this help elsewhere on the internet so consider this my contribution to the sewing machine self-help knowledge pool. If you find it helpful please let me know! The clever Nichola at Handmaker's Factory in Melbourne recently posted about fixing the timing on the industrial Janome sewing machine in their studio. This spurred me into action because I knew I had an old Singer that needed its timing fixed. I have a love of old mechanical sewing machines and fixing minor issues makes me feel rather handy. So I watched the videos, gave it a try and it worked! Booyah! But. The machine still had a problem. Pretty much total lack of tension on the upper thread. The end of the tension dial would not wind in far enough to put pressure on the tension discs, and when wound out, it would keep winding and come right off. The machine is a Singer 348 - the beguiling 'Blue Magic'. This is how ...
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Care of your Boiled Wool

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We have some lovely 100% boiled wools at The Drapery for this first time this year. The care of these fabrics was a bit of a mystery to us as well as to you, so we've done some investigation. Will my boiled wool shrink if I wash it at home? More than likely, yes. That surprised us, too. One would guess since the fabric is called 'boiled wool' and has a felted, non-fray texture, that it is pre-shrunk and would not shrink further. Not so - please be well aware! Here's what we found: We tried three kinds of gentle washing: - Front loading machine wash 'wool cycle', 30 degrees , with wool wash liquid, rinse, spin. - Gentle hand wash, warm , with wool wash liquid, rinse, press dry in a towel. - Front loading machine wash 'wool cycle' cold , with wool wash liquid, rinse, spin. In both warm washes (machine and hand) the wool experienced 10 - 15% shrinkage in length. There was little to no shrinkage in width. The cold wash showed sligh...
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Pattern freebie: mini dachshund jacket

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** ETA Dec 2020: Sorry! Due to technical issues (a broken laptop where the pattern was stored) this pattern is no longer available. You can use the illustrations of the pattern pieces below as guide by taking the measurement of the length of your dog's back to correspond to the length of the jacket body along the fold line. Alternatively, we recommend you try the new free dog jacket pattern by Closet Case here .  When we published a photo on Instagram of one of our dogs (wee Lola, above) wearing a jacket made from the scraps from one of our projects recently, we had a few requests to share the pattern. So here it is! A quick guide to how I make a my dog jackets. This is a super simple pattern that is easily adaptable to the size of your dog. But please note that the straps are short and the body long on this pattern to fit the long n’ low dachshund in particular as most jackets are too short for their gorgeous sausagey bodies.  Pattern pieces are below in JPG forma...
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