Today's foot is really an attachment and a significant one at that, the Singer Buttonholer. Modern machines can stitch out various shapes and sizes of buttonholes with a touch of a BUTTON but the old gals had to work a little harder. Many people adore the Singer buttonholer and rave about the quality of the finished button hole.
I have a couple of models that came with my machines. One is in a green plastic box and is an older, black version. It is a low-shank type and was in the grocery bag of goodies with my 185 green machine. The beige buttonholer came in a box with the 457 machine I bought in the sewing table. It is also low-shank. I have a bunch of extra templates (for making various lengths and shapes of button holes) in cute vintage boxes and they are interchangeable between both models of buttonholers. Nice!
However, I really wanted a buttonholer in the adorable, space-age Jetsons-type clamshell container. I had seen them on-line and just loved the look of the cool case. There was one a while back in our antique store but at the time, as much as I thought it was neat, I didn't buy it as I had no need. On another visit it was gone so that was that. Yesterday, I must've been living right because I spotted it once again (or a replacement) tucked away on a shelf in the store and I grabbed it. I was very pleased to have that case and even more so when I got home and discovered that it contained a buttonholer for a SLANT machine! Both my 401A and 503 machines are Singer slant models and I did not have a buttonhole attachment for them. I was super excited and happy!
I tried it first on the 503 and it was a bit sluggish getting going. The buttonholer was gummed up and dirty and probably hadn't been oiled or lubricated in forever (yes, you have to maintain your buttonholers!). I did get it going and produced my first set of button holes. I want to make a sample strip with each template represented and noted. This is a suggestion in the manual and makes a lot of sense. Once you have your strip of button holes you can simply slip a button through each one until you find the correct size. I did use stabilizer and I went around twice.
I don't make a ton of button holes but I am very happy to have my lovely attachments. They are so cool to look at and fun to use. I love the variety of cases and models (each is different - notice the 'gold' on the slant model?). I just need to get a pink clam shell one to round out my collection!
I would be interested to see a video of how those work.
Posted by: Maureen | July 18, 2015 at 07:14 PM