Tuesday, May 24, 2011

{tip Tuesday}: the sewing tool that's not a sewing tool

Have you ever seen one of these?

cleaning rod


It's not really a sewing tool. It's for cleaning out a musical instrument, namely a flute. Like so:

cleaning rod

Naturally, I had this thing already hanging around, because I use it to clean my flute.  Indispensable.

As a sewing tool, though, it's a luxury I no longer can live without. I abhor using a safety pin to thread something through a casing. Ugh! Takes forever. This takes a few seconds.

Also handy for threading a camera strap through a cover. :)

cleaning rod

Your local music store will stock a metal cleaning rod for a few bucks, or a wooden one like mine for a few more. Metal rods are skinnier. Find one online here.

Trust me on this one. You'll wonder how you lived without it, especially if you make a lot of elastic waistbands or aprons with really long casings!!

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3 comments:

  1. Nice tip! I have a plastic bodkin (I think that's what it is called) I got a Michaels, similar size and shape. My questions is, do you ever find it hard to thread this through waistbands (or other things where you have to go around a curve)? My bodkin bends but it is still pretty long and is sometimes tough to get all the way through.

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  2. Thanks for the tip AND I love the Anna Maria Horner fabric!

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  3. @luckpennymake -I haven't had a problem with that, but I bet you could get around it by making a similar tool from pipe cleaners or the like, even though they would be a little trickier to thread through because they are flexible. So far I have had an easy time with this through waistbands because I can "lose" the whole thing inside the casing if necessary, and it still stays threaded.

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