Fanciful ways of fancy stitches

How does a sewing machine produce fancy stitches? It's a combination of stitch length, zig-zag, needle position and reverse feed, and every fancy stitch can be reproduced manually, although it can be a very tedious process. Skip to particular sections: Fancy stitches done manually Fancy stitches with modulated zig-zag width Cam-driven zig-zag Combinations of geared…

New inventions!

I have new inventions to report! Wow, I'm so excited!! Well, to be fair, they are not brand new inventions of mine, but rather adaptations of my existing sewing machines to do new things. Still exciting though! Skip to Chain stitch on a vertical oscillator Skip to New double needle double step stitch The chain…

Blue: a tale of the return

I should really know better. Don't get rid of your trusted machine at the first sign of an apparently superior model. Blue is a 1969 New Home 580 by Janome, the blue version (they also made them in beige in 1970s and even without that striped bit, as the fashion changed). ​ This was one…