There was no bodkin, where a bodkin was required. So I was asked if I could knock one up.
WHAT DID YOU MAKE TODAY?
- Thread starter demented dale
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Not so much making as preparing to make: over the weekend I was harvesting willow bark to use to weave bark baskets, it is the time of year when the bark can be peeled off the inch thick willow rods thinned from my biomass plantation......
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I finally finished the modelling and 3d printing my design for motorising my chinese leather shoe patcher sewing machine. It's all just printed in PLA at the moment. I'll see how it holds up and if needed print in a differnet filament. 
What is a Bodkin? and what does it do? everyday is a schoolday. x
It's a tool used in basketry (my lady has just started working with willow, and so needed one). It's used to part the weave to insert the lengths of willow that support the side.
I made her a second one out of a piece of yew.
It adapts a cheap(ish) sewing machine motor to the hand cranked machine that is shown.
Ah, so the complete opposite. I like the idea of hand cranked. I am all for manual, non power dependent devices. Thanks.
Have you used a hand cranked sewing machine?
Don't get me wrong, it's easier and quicker than hand sewing but having both hands on the material being sewn is very useful. Treadle powered machines existed before electric powered ones for that reason.
It doesn't help that in the case of the patcher machine I've shown the foot is steerable, so yet another thing to be doing.
Nah apart from vintage singer treadle powered machines ive never seen one but I believe that anything that is independent of mains power source could prove more useful in the long term and certainly reinforces independence full stop. Have you got any video of it working? Thanks for educating me. DD x
If you mean the basic unmodified machine just search for "chinese patcher sewing machine" on youtube.
If you mean my modified version then not really. Just a short clip of the motor making it run. It's not publically available though.
Once set up they work well and will go through an impressive amount of material. The rotating foot means that it can get into places where other sewing machines can't.
I made my skin red... Five hours of walking along the river on a very sunny day.
A bit more knitting, made a tank top for cooler days in a recycled mix of merino, alpaca and synthetics. Thinking ahead for autumn and useful for this rather cool spring, tho I bet now it will warm up , and I'll have to put it away untill the weather turns again. Isn't that the way of life. 
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