The big boy buttonholer

I did get to take yesterday off.  And, I did take Sydney out shopping.  And, she did wear me out.  But, she didn’t buy much.  We had lunch and we talked and we came home.  It was a nice way for me to thank her for taking all those pictures.  And, she got to try on more shoes that I would never let her wear.

I spent part of my day finishing the union suit I started before vacation.  The last step was the seven buttons and button holes.  Yikes! 

But, I pulled out the big boy buttonholer for low shank, straight stitch machines, and in about 15 minutes, had all the buttonholes in, and soon after, the buttons were sewn on. 

This buttonholer doesn’t take cams.  It’s manually adjusted.  You can change the length of the buttonhole, the width of the zig-zag used in the sides of the buttonhole, and the width of the cutting area between the two columns of zig-zag stitches. 

Now, all that manual adjusting can take time, but I happened to have used this buttonholer not too long ago and it was already set up.  And, the last time I used it was also the first time I’d ever used it.  But, as I remember, it only took about a half hour of sewing test buttonholes and reading the manual to get it set right.

I connected it to the featherweight yesterday and did one test and re-read the instructions, and I was ready to go.  The wing nut in the very back controls the buttonhole length and the wing nut just in front of that one manually advances the controls so you can uniformly start at the same part of the buttonhole on each one.

 

The two wingnuts on the other side control the width of the zig-zag and the width of the cutting area. 

You can barely see that buttonhole in the union suit, but it’s there and it’s a good one. 

Here’s the finished garment.  Not sure it’s going to fit Rob.  I might need to add some more torso length for him.  But, it fits me fine.  It was fun to go backward in time and experiment with a vintage garment. 

And, I know it sounds strange, but I’d really wear this.  And, I might.  Oh, not for everyday, but it would be a fun winter undergarment.  Except the whole opening up the rear end part.  That could get cumbersome.

Everybody have a great Saturday.  I was informed yesterday that the term Daddy/Daughter day is reserved for Rob and Syd.  Yesterday was a Man-mom/Daughter day. 

Okay, I can live with that.

Today, we’re headed to the New Braunfels quilt show.  We’ve been once before and I remember it as a very nice show, so hopefully, tomorrow, there will be some pictures of pretty quilts. 

Lane