Featured

Handmade Community Sewing Group 2023

Another year and lots of wonderful sewing, learning and socialising in our community sewing group. Here’s a reminder of the dates we have so far for the year, but please remember that these may change because of holidays and other unforeseen circumstances.

You may ask what are we going to make? but as always I like to keep it a secret until the day.😁🧵. Whatever we do, it will be fun and useful and you will learn new things. For January, if you have your own sewing machine please try to bring it along with you as you will be working on it . If your machine is too heavy or you can’t bring it because of transport reasons please don’t worry because as usual you’ll have the use of the machines provided (this is only for January’s class).

Let’s sew!

Featured

A Stitch In Time…..Saves Lives!

A Stitch In Time Saves Lives!
For every single person at home behind a sewing machine or with needle in hand putting an item together for key workers I wanted to say a great BIG thank you! Whether it’s a headband, scrub bag, scrubs or anything sewn between, you are part of a new and momentous movement. A movement that’s brought us together to help where we can. A movement where our skills were honed for such a time as this (Esther). A movement that helps us to express our gratitude to others, and above all a movement that allows us to express our love – one stitch at a time. We are all part of an elaborate tapestry that we cannot yet see the finished design, but know that every stitch counts towards the outcome.
Thank you and keep those stitches coming.

#AStitchInTimeSavesLives #sewingforacause #sewingforkeyworkers #sewingforcharity #scrubsforkeyworkers #scrubsforthenhs #headbandsforheroesuk #sewityourself #heskethemporium #heskethemporiumhandmade #fortheloveofscrubs #wiganscrubhub #wp

Brother PS-31 – Gifted

This little Brother sewing machine was sent off to a new home yesterday. Amal was incredibly happy to receive it and I am blessed to be able to bless her.

Here is a link to a manual – not the exact model but similar enough to help…..https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Vl9Vc5LQVgVvdaKcM35XQ37OLjRgYyO/view?usp=drivesdk

Christmas Stocking Tutorial…

Follow along as I show you how to make Christmas Stockings. These are fully lined and strong enough to carry all the lovely Christmas surprises.

To make your stockings you need two designs of fabric in either 100% cotton or polycotton. You could also make these in a lighter weight upholstery fabric but not too thick or it will be too stiff and also difficult to turn.

I will be uploading a PDF of the pattern and it will be available here.

Happy sewing!

Winding a bobbin – vintage Brother 661

I have created this video at the request of one of my YouTube followers who has this machine but cannot wind the bobbin.

I hope this will be of use to others who have this model or a similar vintage machine.

You will find other vintage sewing machine videos and tutorials at Hesketh Emporium or here….

https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCa1pZdEOvSlIDiUAXdO_u6A

GIFTED – This lovely machine was for sale on the Hesketh Emporium.com shop.

Betsy is fixed!

Betsy is a Bernina Virtuosa 160 which has given me a fair bit of trouble since I’ve had her. I’ve previously serviced her and she’s been in the Handmade Community sewing room for a while but suddenly she stopped pulling the fabric through the machine.

I’ve had her at home for well over a year for a checkup so it is long overdue.

On the workbench today- Bernina Activa 140…

Say hello to Brianna. I brought her home from my community Sewing group to give her a service and one of the spool holders has broken as well. This will need to be modelled and reprinted on our 3-D printer and I’ll leave that to my amazing hubby.

One Newhome rescues another….

Isn’t it amazing when you receive three Sewing Machines in a couple of weeks of each other and one has to be scrapped but as a result a part from it is used to rescue another one!

Another Newhome sewing machine in the work space today. NewHome 531. This one comes in a little table. Her name is Nancy.

I can’t believe that the Sewing Machine I scrapped yesterday has given new life to this old girl. Sadly this machine came with no foot pedal and electrical connector and no spare parts, feet or anything else. If it hadn’t been for the fact that yesterday I scrapped the other machine which came with a power supply and footpedal this one would sadly have also been consigned to the scrapheap.

It’s a much happier ending for this old girl because after a lot of cleaning she is now working absolutely perfectly. I took thread out of places where a machine would normally never see thread! I am not sure how people manage this but it was so bad that the machine wouldn’t even turn over and the motor just hummed trying to drive the belt and would’ve burnt out if I hadn’t cleaned it first.

A lot of cleaning and oiling and slowly the parts started to move. At that point I knew she was worth working on and I continued the restoration process.

She is now sewing a beautiful seam

https://youtu.be/24C7Z_SgGz0. Threading a NewHome 531 sewing machine.

I will use her to sew for a few hours to ensure everything is well and then she will be ready for rehoming. A very happy ending for a vintage machine. 🧵😁❤️

Not all Vintage Sewing Machines can be rescued…

I’m often gifted Sewing Machines which I restore and pass on to people that are learning to sew. The problem is that not all sewing machines can be repaired and are worth repairing.

I’m immediately suspicious when machine arrives with bits of broken plastic and hinges snapped. In this case I believe the machine has at some point been dropped

I generally base my decision on whether to repair a machine on its worth now and the quality of the machine to start with.

In the case of this NewHome machine that I received recently, I firstly check that it works if it’s electrical and then work my way from there. In this case I oiled it and cleaned it but when it came to actually sewing the motor was unable to turn the needle bar up and down. This was not a problem with the motor which works fine but rather something not turning correctly inside the machine.

In the case of this machine it will cost too much time and energy to find what is internally damaged and I therefore have to just harvest the parts that I can to use in other sewing machine restorations.

This does make me very sad, but when you have limited time, energy and resources you need to ensure you’re spending it on a machine that is worth the effort.