Happy New Year with Cozy toes and Buttonholes

I thought I would end the year on a revelation- sewing not biblical, the Singer Featherweight buttonhole attachment.  I have been meaning to blog this forever so now seems as good a time as ever.  My need for this came out of my dissatisfaction with Janome buttonholes.

I first read of this here and was puzzled and intrigued.  A featherweight is a straights stitch only machine, I couldn't not possible work out how it could achieve the swing stitch needed for a buttonhole.  It starts with removing the foot and adding a needle plate cover...

 The buttonholer screws into the sewing machine foot with a giant screw

And then you are good to go...

You do need to play around with the different dials- this big red one denotes the different stages of buttonhole sewing.

 There are three other dials, the one below sets the density of the stitches, the other two, the length and width of the buttonhole.

Let's cut to the chase and see it in action.  You can see the attachment oscillates (love that word and always makes me think of this)

Here is the buttonhole with a single round of stitching , and then with a double round.  And it repeats each one exactly the same- precisely what the Janome Horizon and a whole host of modern machines cannot do.

Got to love the amazing timeless engineering of the Featherweight.
My other revelation for this year is Ugg boots.  After years of strident denial I succumbed and ended up with a pair for indoors and a pair for outdoors and my feet are forever thankful.
I am not one for looking back, it encourages a more maudlin aspect of my personality that I would rather not invite to the party.  All I wish for is what we all want: health and happiness for you and your families, me and my family- its all that matters x