Vridar

- Always stop winding the location of the first wrap of thread down in the nose the shuttle helps to ease the shuttle spring threading process. -

Thanks, needed that. Also, the HC positioning. Needle descends on my fingers quit often with my 28 HC. The wheel chair transport was already mentally noted from your 31(?) Rehab thread.

ThayerRags

When mending denim jeans using the method of placing another piece of denim fabric inside of the jeans behind the damaged area and darning the fabric in place to fill the hole and reinforce the existing denim around the failed area, I use the following trick:

Using a freearm machine to avoid having to open a leg seam on all but the smallest pair of jeans to get to the knee area, I use a multizigzag stitch, size 11 needle, Tex27 or Tex30 thread top and bottom, zigzag foot, and my trick:

I set the presser foot pressure really light. Not quite to a “darning” position, but at a really light pressure. I want the feed dog to feed the fabric when allowed, but not to the point that I can’t easily overcome the feed manually by pulling the fabric in any direction. In my application, it becomes a feeding/darning process that is perfect for mending jeans. The stitches are placed around the outside of the hole, through two layers of denim fabric, and as with any darning operation, the idea is to put as many stitches as possible in a small area. And small thread is your friend for darning. If you’ve ever worn a pair of socks that were darned with large thread and got a hot spot on your foot, you know what I mean. Don’t use too darn big of thread.

BTW, my machine of choice is the Singer Stylist 538 or the Singer Stylist 834 (the 834 has the Multizigzag stitch built-in). I’ve used each one, and the 538 needed one new hook gear replacement in 4 years of regular use, and the 834 came to me with a broken hook gear that I replaced and have used regularly for 4 years. I mend about 150 pairs of jeans each year, and about half of those are crotch seams. I break a needle every now and then on the crotch seams, and that’s where I’ve broken the hook gears too.

The Singer Stylist line of machines are usually not on the list of desired machines because of their fiber gears, and rightfully so. But if you’re able to replace a hook gear and re-time a machine, they’re great for this one application. Setting about any machine to a light presser foot pressure should aid in darning for mending.

CD in Oklahoma