Welcome to my blog! I'm Sari, a mother of a 2 year old girl and 7 year old boy/girl twins. I started this blog 6 years ago when I started using cloth diapers. If you scroll back to the earlier posts, you can see my learning adventure with the twins, there's a lot of really helpful information if you are interested in cloth diapers. I hope that this can be a valuable source of information for other moms contemplating making the switch to cloth diapers and/or making their own diapers.

Now I'm using this as more of a general "mom blog". I'm crafty, I like to bake and I'm currently a group fitness instructor and a Beachbody coach. I may plug my own business every so often (click here!), but I will expand my topics to cover basically anything that I feel like writing about - experiences I have or products that I think deserve a review (both good and bad). If I'm getting paid or benefiting in any way then that will be mentioned in the post.

Do you have a product that you would like me to try and review? Send me an email

Friday, June 19, 2009

Cloth Diaper Sewing 101... Equipment!

I've been sewing on a Singer 4528 Merritt, which is about 20 years old. Lovely, isn't it?

It's still working well enough that I don't feel the need to buy a new sewing machine, but I needed to get a new presser foot to accommodate the different types of fabric that you need to sew when making cloth diapers. More specifically, I needed to buy an even feed walking foot. A walking foot helps you sew on stretchy fabrics (like cotton knits and PUL) so that this doesn't happen:

I was trying to sew two layers of hemp fleece together by zig zagging the edges together. As you can see, this ruffling effect is not the look I was going for. Here's the same zig zag stitch AFTER I installed my new walking foot.

Much better, right? The walking foot makes it so the fabric on top and the fabric on the bottom go through at the same rate. That's why it's also called an "even feed" foot. Better, yes, but I decided that the zig zagged edges aren't as professional as I would like. SO, in addition to the new walking foot, I finally bit the bullet and bought a serger! I did my research and found a serger that gets great reviews, but is on the lower end of the price range. I've ordered the Brother 1034D. It has a feature called "differential feed" which basically does what a walking foot does and serges your stretchy fabrics without the puckered edges.

It's important to note that a serger does NOT replace a sewing machine. If you are new to sewing and want to make your own diapers, you must start with a sewing machine. Sergers are intended to be used in addition to a sewing machine to help make your edges look more professional. That is why I still needed the walking foot. So back to the walking foot...

I purchased my walking foot on eBay for two reasons. The first reason is that you can get one on eBay for almost half of what it would cost in the store. I paid $16 (shipping included) for mine. A similar one in a store would cost $3o. The second reason I bought it on eBay is because my machine is a dinosaur, and it's not as easy to find parts for it in a store. Walking feet are fairly universal though, so they should be easy to find. I found an eBay seller that listed my machine under compatibility, so I was sure it would fit properly. Here's a picture of the walking foot next to a regular foot so you can see the difference. Looks like a monster, eh? lol

And here is the walking foot after I installed it. It took me about 10 seconds to install, very easy. Notice how there is a forked part that goes over the nob that holds your needle in. I'm not sure what it does, but that's where it's supposed to go.

4 comments:

glasscat said...

aha!!! yes, I definitely DO NOT have one of those! thank you for enlightening me :-) I have wondered how to overcome the rufflies (have sewn hemp and microfiber pocket inserts and they NEVER come out flat)

very cool!

Suz said...

How funny, my old dinosaur is also a Singer Merritt but I think it may be even a couple years older than yours!

I've got serger envy by the way!

Unknown said...

I have to have one of those feet! I'll be putting that serger on my wish list.

Nancy said...

I have a Singer 4528 C as well and I'm trying to find the year it was manufactured. I'm also having trouble locating my serial number. Can you help me?