A favor for my father-in-law
Tools find tasks.
My father-in-law knows about my sewing machine adventures - he’s even supported them by letting me fix up his mother’s Pfaff 31 for my daughter to use. He figured since there’s a sewing machine around intended for rough stuff, it ought to be used.
He dropped off a large leaf bag yesterday, and asked me to sew it back together. The seam holding the bottom together had come (partly) undone, leaving a large hole around the edge.
| Busted bag |
|---|
 |
This was a perfect chance to get out my Adler class 8 sewing machine and practice on something where it doesn’t matter (much) how it looks. Try going straight freehand and if you don’t quite get it, well, so what.
I pinned the bag back together, putting the nylon band back in place over the seam.
| Pinned bag |
|---|
 |
The old Adler didn’t work up a sweat going through two layers of reinforced plastic sheet and two layers of nylon strap. It ran so easy you’d think it was sewing air.
Before starting, I set the thread tension higher than I’d use on cloth. The Adler sews cloth at about 35 grams of thread tension, but the bag is made of tough stuff so I set the tension to 50 grams.
| Sewing the bag |
|---|
 |
It mostly went well, but there were a couple of spots where the bag got away from me. It was too big to fit between the sewing machine and the bookshelf at the other end of the sewing table. The bag hung up on the shelf a couple of times and pulled things out of line.
| Oops! |
|---|
 |
I mostly managed to “keep it between the ditches.” I actually sewed around the whole thing about three times rather than just sewing the torn spot back together. It was orignally sewn with some really long stitches - that’s probably why it came undone.
| Multiple seams |
|---|
 |
The engraved name on the chromed plate is the name of the dealer who originally sold my Adler back in the 1920s. “Lange und Pennigsdorf” is the dealer’s name. They were located in Magdeburg, Germany. The shop was in the building at Regierungsstraße 22. I’ve found newspaper advertisements from the early 1920s and from 1930. They moved sometime from Regierungsstraße 22 to Regierungsstraße 7-9. I don’t know exactly when, but the move was presumably after 1926 since that’s the year my Adler was manufactured.
At any rate, the leaf bag is back together.
| All done |
|---|
 |
Not the neatest job, but it’ll work. Getting good takes practice, and I’ve got a lot of “gooder” to get.
It’ll go back to my father-in-law tomorrow so he can finish cleaning up his yard.