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As a side project to keep me sane, I've been working on a decorative version of the electro-mechanical sunglasses which use the (very expensive!) brass gears that I originally bought but was unable to use. One of the things I wanted to try was making them full goggles, as the weight of the original version required a strap anyway. I wanted to make leather rings for the eye padding, which is why I bought the surprisingly leather jacket mentioned earlier.
I made a pattern, cut them out, and started sewing last Sunday. It was very, very slow going, hand-sewing through two layers of leather. I managed to get one done, poorly, and the next day my finger/wrist joints were NOT happy. There has to be a better way, I thought. Why don't I use the drill press sitting in the kitchen? All that lovely mechanical advantage to push the needle through. But getting it all lined up will be a pain, and I'll still have to pull it the rest of the way through each time. Unless...
...unless I used the drill press as a sewing machine!
So I chucked a sewing machine needle (the kind with the eye at the tip) up in the drill press, and tried piercing the leather -- SO EASY. And away I went. As it turns out, sewing this way isn't too bad. You're just replicating the motion of a mechanical sewing machine, using a second needle and thread to replace the bobbin. The results were 10x better looking, and didn't involve any joint pain. There have been a couple other bits of leather sewing I'm still doing by hand, but for all the big, complicated stretches I've been doing it this way, including redoing the original piece.
( More pics and explanation )
A brief search didn't show any evidence of this approach being documented before. (Maybe because who has a drill press and no sewing machine?) So I'm laying my claim to it with this post. Index away, Google!
I made a pattern, cut them out, and started sewing last Sunday. It was very, very slow going, hand-sewing through two layers of leather. I managed to get one done, poorly, and the next day my finger/wrist joints were NOT happy. There has to be a better way, I thought. Why don't I use the drill press sitting in the kitchen? All that lovely mechanical advantage to push the needle through. But getting it all lined up will be a pain, and I'll still have to pull it the rest of the way through each time. Unless...
...unless I used the drill press as a sewing machine!
So I chucked a sewing machine needle (the kind with the eye at the tip) up in the drill press, and tried piercing the leather -- SO EASY. And away I went. As it turns out, sewing this way isn't too bad. You're just replicating the motion of a mechanical sewing machine, using a second needle and thread to replace the bobbin. The results were 10x better looking, and didn't involve any joint pain. There have been a couple other bits of leather sewing I'm still doing by hand, but for all the big, complicated stretches I've been doing it this way, including redoing the original piece.
( More pics and explanation )
A brief search didn't show any evidence of this approach being documented before. (Maybe because who has a drill press and no sewing machine?) So I'm laying my claim to it with this post. Index away, Google!