Wow! The week has flown by, and it’s already Friday!
I’ve had so much fun; playing with the different Inspira stabilizers, trying out different fabric types for machine embroidery, and mending that sweater yesterday was brilliant. All of it was super easy using the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby 90.
I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a lazy sewist. I love handwork, but if I can do the task with a sewing machine, I’ll do it. I have a jacket to repair today, and I was going to do it by hand, but that meant finding some hand needles, and well, the Designer Ruby 90 was calling to me. So, I’m repairing the jacket with the sewing machine.
Now the repair is straightforward. A snap used to close the jacket, which I had initially stitched in place by hand, was coming loose, and I figured it was better to fix the snap now before it completely fell off and got lost. You know what they say – a stitch in time saves nine!
It’s so easy to sew buttons on with the sewing machine, but did you know there are several ways to do that? Let’s have a look.
I’ll start with the optional Button Foot with Placement Tool. It easily snaps onto the presser foot ankle.
What’s nice about the Button Foot is that if I need the button sewn on without a shank, it stays in the position shown above. If my fabric is thick, then I need the button sewn on with a shank. It’s easy to transition between the two settings as there’s a small gray lever on the right-hand side, and by pulling that forward, a plastic ridge appears at the front, and the shank (made of thread) forms over that ridge.
Along the front of the Button Foot, you’ll notice that there’s a slot on either side of the foot. These slots hold the button in place. It can be tricky to get the button into the slots and get the holes lined up with the needle. However, there’s a handy tool that makes this job super simple. The Placement Tool has two prongs that you insert into the holes of the button.
Then it’s simple to insert the button into the front slots. The way the Placement Tools grabs the button ensures the button’s holes are in line with the needle.
Then you can remove the tool, and you are ready to sew. But wait – the needle isn’t in the correct position in this photo because I did not select the stitch that I’ll use to sew on the button.
It’s so easy; it’s child play! When I turn the Designer Ruby 90 on, the JoyOS Advisor appears on the opening screen. And let’s look in the bottom right-hand corner. What does that say? Sew on button! Wow – how easy is that?
Selecting that icon opens a window with the correct stitch for sewing on the button. A tutorial to explain what supplies are needed and how to sew the stitch also appears. And even better, the Designer Ruby 90 is now ready to sew the button on. All the settings are taken care of by the JoyOS Advisor. I love it!
Now you’ll notice in the tutorial, that the Multipurpose tool is used to hold the button in place. If you need a thin or thick shank, the Multipurpose tool can be used instead of the Button Foot. The Multipurpose foot is part of the accessories for the Designer Ruby 90. Either option will work.
The default width of the stitch for sewing on the button is 3mm. That is pretty much an industry standard, but I still manually test the left and right needle position by manually turning the handwheel. The last thing I want is bits of broken buttons or needles flying around the studio.
The other thing to note on the tack stitch used to sew on the button is the number of times the needle goes left to right. You’ll see in the settings that the default is 8. That’s probably a couple more than I would do if I were sewing the button by hand. You can increase or decrease that number.
Now that everything is ready, let’s see it in action.
Isn’t that just the best? But I want to re-attach a snap, so I’ll use a slightly different technique to fix the jacket.
I’ve removed the Button Foot, and I’m not going to use the Multipurpose Tool. I’m simply going to use the presser foot ankle to hold the snap in place. Only two sides of the snap were loose, so I didn’t need to secure it to the jacket. But if I had to, I could use some tape, which they recommended in the built-in tutorial.
I carefully positioned the snap so the hole would line up with the needle. I manually tested that the needle would go back and forth and not hit the snap.
That was too easy. Make sure you clean up the old threads first. And here is the snap, firmly attached on all sides. I really should’ve removed the rest of the hand stitching and secured all four sides of the snap with the Designer Ruby 90. Since each securing stitch took seconds, I might go back and do that.
WOW – WOW – WOW – that was so easy! I’m having so much fun creating new things and repairing things with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby 90. It’s an excellent machine that does all kinds of jobs! My week is up, but you can bet that I’m scouring that pile of projects to see what else I can fix or create with this fabulous sewing and embroidery machine.
Be sure to stop by your local Husqvarna Viking sewing machine dealer and ask for an in-person demo. You’ll be impressed.
Thanks for stopping by this week, and until next time,
Have a super day!
Ciao!
This is part 5 of 5 in this series
Go back to part 4: How to fix a hole in a knit sweater with machine embroidery