Revamping your old belt!

After finally getting my sewing machine to work I got down to some serious business with my reconstruction. I've taken an old belt that has lost its life and encased it in the jeans material from my hubby's old pair of jeans (the one that became jeans bangles and a tissue case too).


It's an easy project. I think this could work with any type of old material. I was thinking of scrunching up the material but because the jeans material was too thick it ended up really bulky. I guess T-shirt material or some sort of satin material would have been better. In the end, I sewed on lots of old buttons and beads. Happy sewing!

Old belt - this was an elasticated belt and so it was easy to sew through.

My sewing machine jammed!

Have no fear! For the "unjammer" is here. Okay, that was rather corny, but when your sewing machine jams for the second time in the year, you get a bit desparate and not having a working sewing machine is like cold turkey! I thought about getting the repair man to fix it (that would cost about SGD50 inclusive of transport) and even getting a new one which would cost me at least SGD400.

The important thing about sewing machines is that they must be CLEANED and OILED regularly.  I think that means every six months for someone like me. If you don't clean it, all the fluff from your sewing will jam the machine. Sometimes you can't see the fluff, but it's there. 

All sewing machines come with a little brush and a small tube of oil. Use can also use a soft cloth or tooth pick (don't use a cotton bud as it leaves fluff) to clean out gunk too.  Faithfully follow the instructions in the maintenance section of your instruction manual.  I must stress the word faithfully because I missed a step and I still couldn't unjam my machine. I only cleaned and oiled the bobbin and bobbin case, and was lazy to do the same with the feed-dog. Turns out there was fluff in the teeth of the feed-dog.  Don't sew immediately or else you'll end up with oil patches on your fabric. Also, change your needle to a new one as the needle may have been damaged when your machine jammed! Anyway, I hope you find the pics useful :-)  Happy sewing!

1. Unscrew & remove platform  2. Use brush to defluff teeth
3. Remove bobbin; dismantle bobbin case (to dismantle turn the levers at arrow 3)
[use brush to defluff all parts, use a soft cloth too! Oil at arrow 7 and 6.]



Oh behave!

It's been a long 2 weeks since I last blogged, mainly because of work and secondly my poor sewing machine jammed again as I was doing another reconstruction (will blog about that later!). 

I did come across some interesting sites about behaviour though. Nowadays, governments are trying to come up with schemes/programmes that will help "nudge" the public in the desired direction.  A good example is the gruesome pictures on the cigarette packs to deter people from smoking, or placing recycling bins below our housing estates to get people to recycle. It is difficult though - have you ever tried changing the behaviour of your loved ones? hee hee. 

Here's someone who's actually stealing from a recycling bin instead of actually using it correctly - is there something wrong with the way the bin is designed, or are we sending the wrong message?

This is a picture of the recycling bins just outside our neighbourhood shopping centre. I think the reason why they're used incorrectly is that it's more convenient for the shoppers who've finished their food and drinks to pop their waste there instead of the general waste bin !