Still With the Zippers

The pile of paperwork has been filed and the cutting table is once again clear. The construction company is a partnership (hubby and me), and the tax returns are due March 15, so I try to get all of that information to the accountant as soon after January 1 as I can.

I worked on the Kanoko Tote after lunch. Let’s talk about machines for a moment, shall we? I am not a happy sewist if my machines are not humming along in top-notch shape. My beloved Necchi industrial was out of commission for almost six months after I broke the tension stud. Thanks to a very talented machinist in Spokane, I was able to get a replacement part. I haven’t sewn a lot on that machine since I put the new part on it, but when I started this project, I spent a good 30 minutes refining both the upper and lower tensions so that they are absolutely perfect.

The Juki 1541 has a servo motor with a needle positioner. In a nutshell, that means that I can control the speed of the motor digitally. I can also tell the machine to stop sewing with the needle up or the needle down, depending on my preference. I like it to stop sewing with the needle down, in the material. The servo motor came with some incredibly awful instructions translated to English from Japanese. With help from someone on the Facebook vintage industrial sewing machine group, I managed to slow down the motor (a bit), but in the process, I somehow toggled the needle positioner and the needle has been stopping in the up position.

One of the staff at Juki Junkies—where I got the machine—posted a YouTube video about changing the speed and needle position on the 1541 servo motor. Changing the settings is actually not that difficult if you’re able to make sense of the instructions. I slowed the motor to the lowest setting of 200 rpms. That is still fast if you’re not paying attention. Believe it or not, the top speed is 8000 rpms.

Now I can sew stitch by stitch. I just have to make sure my fingers aren’t in the way. I took the finger guard off the machine because it interfered with the presser foot I like to use. I think the 1541 and I will be good friends from now on, though.

The body of the tote bag is mostly complete:

It’s not perfect; attaching that front zipper pocket to the body was an absolute pain. Some of the issue, I think, is that the waxed canvas has been in the stash for a couple of years and is pretty stiff. If I hit it with a hair dryer, it softens up; I do that when I need to turn parts of the bag inside out. The fabric cools quickly, though, and gets stiff again. I doubt I would have had so much trouble had I used the Klum House waxed canvas, which is much more supple.

I was going to sew the top zipper to the zipper facing before stopping for the day, but the instructions are very specific about the length of the zipper in relation to the zipper facing. That is to ensure that there is enough seam allowance at each side to avoid the risk of hitting the ends of the zipper with the needle. Even though I had the 14" zipper specified in the materials list, I didn’t have quite enough clearance. Shortening a metal zipper is pretty straighforward: Remove the top zipper stops and clip off the teeth one by one. I could not get the zipper stops off the zipper, though, and had to enlist the husband’s help. (He made it look easy, of course.) He clipped off three teeth on each side, I replaced the zipper stops, and now the zipper is the correct length.

After I sew the top zipper, the lining is all that is left. I think this pattern will work nicely as a basis for a travel tote, although I will need to modify the dimensions. My tote is wider and not quite as tall as this one.