So we purchased a commercial fur sewing machine – I should explain this process: Jeff has been checking out fur sewing machines (a most useful tool) for a while and found a used one on Craigs list in Boston, where Anja and Duff made arrangements to pick it up, but they had to wait until Zach needed to travel to New England for work (from Ohio) with his pick-up truck, so they could physically get this machine, which is attached to a heavy duty table, and then Zach drove home via Carlisle and dropped the machine off.
Jeff threading the machine |
This is not at all like an ordinary sewing machine and it does amazing seams with fur – the seam looks similar to one made by a serger machine, but much, much finer. Up to now, we had been using Tina’s rather nice, regular sewing machine, but the fur was pretty hard on it. Despite this, Anja and Jeff made several raccoon hats before – see older blog post – and last year we made a fur stole for Grammy, which turned out ok as well. Looks like this winter we’ll get to sew in a much more efficient way!