Silver Case

One of the projects I finished this weekend was a random carrying bag I made on impulse when I was inspired by a piece of red felt scrap a few weeks ago. I wound up with a roughly A4-sized cordura bag embroidered with felt and thick cotton-lined, closed with a lapped zipper and a red webbing handle. Worksmanship is not perfect, but the zipper application and general stitching was cleaner than previous projects.

Inside of the bag. Big enough to carry a suit’s worth pile of junk plus some extra goodies I expect.

After embroidering the design, I constructed the panels. Everything is made from scrap.

Key: keep good track of right-side/wrong-side of fabric. Easy to accidentally reverse.

Lapped Zipper

Learned from experience

Inspired by streaks of red… webbing, thread, and felt.

One big step left… stitch it together into the final bag.

Finished sewing, now inside-out it, and psh out the corners.

It is still the dark of night.

I built a custom-sized Forward Air Controller messenger bag this month.

In the present, we have sewing machine reference cards that sew themselves

My Singer 20u Professional is a very capable sewing machine. The operating latitude is much wider. I trivially punch through eight layers of cordura and denim and make tidy seams, and I’ve also sewn 1/8″ hems on gossamer-thin silk.

The trade-off? There is no single tension setting that will work under all those circumstances, especially when I am changing thread types from cotton embroidery thread to heavy duty quilting-thread. Sewing under ‘home conditions’ normally I can just adjust top-thread tension and get the stitch I want. However, after lots of flailing, I realize I do have to adjust bobbin thread tension, at least sometimes.

In wandering around the 2-dimensional(*) adjustment matrix, I was confusing myself, mis-interpreting problems, and really wasting a lot of time, thread, and material. So today I decided to make myself a reference card set of the front/back of stitches as I moved around the top and bottom tension axes.

I used my Gutterman cotton/cotton quilting thread (red color on top, black on bottom) and two layers of canvas duck. I found a decent stitch setting, ran a row, and then methodically tightened the tension dial, running new stitches. Once I had gone as tight as made sense, I tried to go back to zero. Who knows how close I got, so I called my new location 0′ and then loosened the tension until it got silly.

I was suprised how much of a tolerable range of tension the machine had. The scans aren’t ideal, but from the fabric itself, I can see a lot of detail, and with the markings, it’s in context, so I can interpret it much better.

I did the same procedure for the bobbin thread tension. The adjustments here are much finer and more precise and give less latitude. It’s also easier to see exactly where I was set, so I had no need for the Zero Prime marker.

In looking at stitches, I wish I had something better than my naked eye and a really optically-lame magnifying glass on a cheap solder station. Having a stereoscope would be tremendous, especially when I am not using bobbin and top threads of different color.

(*) I’m also not sure that this tensioning is a 2d matrix. I suspect there is interaction with the fabrics themselves, and also vaguely suspicious that remaining thread on the bobbin makes a difference. I know I had a bad wind once (my own fault) and it seemed to give me an unusable bobbin. I ended up hacking the thread away.

I made my first lined pouch today. It turned into Tien Lee’s Christmas present. Not really sure what she’ll keep in it, as it’s roughly the dimension of a 6-stick pack of White Owls.

Now that I have a lined pouch and a zipper under my belt, I’m going to do something a bit more subtle, using some of my silk evasion maps as a liner.

Zig Zag Stitch testing

Originally uploaded by karavshin.

I screwed around with the embroidery and zig-zag settings of the u20. I’m optimistic that with some practice, this machine can produce some pretty sharp embroidery on top of 1000 denier Cordura.

I need to talk to the seller. I can’t find the hemming foot. I know I used it at their demo a few weeks ago. The only other foot like that is a double-hem and I can’t figure out how to load and feed it properly.

Now I need to start working on a project. I’m thinking about making a proper travel documents carrier.

My Singer u20 Professional arrived today, tuned and accessorized. I even got an english manual.

After ripping through some canvas duck, I pulled out some of the hunks of leather I’d bought in Tokyo. Sure enough, with a proper leather needle, I sewed through quarter-inch leather with no problems. I need to get a better selection of leather needles, though. My machine takes commercial (round shank) needles. Although I can install home-use needles, they are not strong enough. My machine snapped one of the home use needles. I need to get some 16-20 shank leather commercial sewing needles before I can do much.

After playing with leather, I wanted to work on applique using the kimono fabric I’d bought in Tokyo and some of the 800d cordura fabric I’d bought in Singapore. Accidentally, my embroidery thread color matched the kimono.

As a second attempt, it worked out really well. The poorer sections of the stitching here was because I hadn’t threaded the bobbin correctly. After I got that resolved, it worked perfectly. This machine has a knee-operated lever to lift the presser foot. This turns out to be terrific for sewing the curves in applique. A small lift makes it easier to smoothly turn the piece.

Now I need to go make something proper I guess.

Last I checked, I was going to get a Yamato DP-1111 Industrial Sewing machine. I went by the shop today to check it out, and they showed me another model, a Singer Professional 20u. They actually recommended I take the Singer instead. It has the same functionality (straight and zig-zag) as the Yamato, almost the same power, and parts (including speciality feet) are much, much easier to get hold over. As an added bonus, it cost $750 as opposed to the $1000 Yamato.

I tried it out and it tore though many layers of my toughest fabrics, so I have no concern about its power. I did long seams of applique run, and the stitching was uniform. It was manufactured in Japan, unlike modern Singers, so it has the same build quality as the Yamato. I think I will be able to get a manual for it as well.

They’re going to deliver it to me next Thursday, a public holiday (Hari Raya Haji), the day after I get back from five days in Tokyo. Wheeee can’t wait.