Me & Juki meet our match

Me & Juki conceded this contest today..... we could not sew this vinyl welt.
If it had just been vinyl that we made our own welting from, we could have done it.  But this is ready-made welt and instead of being sewn, it's held together with an adhesive.  It comes with those little clips already made.
I'm not sure but I think it's the adhesive that Juki can't handle.  The machine kept dragging and the fabric (Sunbrella) kept puckering and then when inside the head of the machine a thumping, straining noise started, we called a screeching halt to the project.
We're very disappointed, but these pillows will have to go to an upholsterer to be sewn.
I checked out Juki and gave her a good cleaning and a pep talk and she's sewing normal fabric just fine!  whew

Troubleshooting

So the table was piled with shade fabric and lining all cut and ready for sewing to begin.

There are all kinds of fabrication techniques used in the workroom, and a lot of different sewing machines.

For sewing rings on shades, there are two options- sew on by hand, or sew on by machine.

To sew by machine, you need a zig-zag machine that does not have any computer electronics in it.  You need just a plain old ordinary domestic machine, nothing fancy, as long as it does zig-zag and also can lower the "feed dogs."

I've always wanted to look up the term "feed dog" to see where it came from, but I haven't yet, so I can't tell you why that's its name, but what it does is move the fabric from front to back as you sew along.  When you disable it, the fabric stays in one place and that's how rings get sewn on.

Well, my little machine's feed dogs wouldn't stay lowered.  I took the machine apart and figured out how the mechanism works, but couldn't figure out what was wrong.

So I did what I always do when something doesn't work- call husband!  John, world-class troubleshooter, improvisor, fixer, and figure-outer.  The foremost qualifications of a successful audio engineer.

We examined the machine and saw what had to happen, but couldn't figure out exactly what part wasn't working right in order to improvise a repair.

The little metal thingie that was supposed to move the other metal thingie over wasn't holding, but nothing appeared to be broken.

So we tried to think of a way to disable the feed dogs.  Duct tape wasn't going to solve anything in this case, but in the world of problem-solving, the runner up to duct tape is cable ties- and I had a thousand of them, in all different sizes.

Two of them side by side fit perfectly in the little space where the metal thingie is supposed to be pushed over to- isn't that great descriptive writing- and voila, it's fixed!

At least long enough to finish up these shades.  John says he only wishes he'd used the blue ones so they'd look better in the photo.

Look Ma, no foot!

A lot of our sewing is done by hand, but certainly not all.  Rings for shades are sometimes sewn by hand and sometimes by machine, depending on the fabric, whether the style of the shade will hide the stitches, and how much our backs and hands hurt that day.  And sometimes a project just must get finished, and the sewing machine speeds up the process somewhat, though less than you might think.
Anyhow, today's shade rings are being sewn by machine, and for some reason I haven't gotten to the bottom of yet, the needle keeps hitting the foot.  After fiddling and testing and altering and fussing, I decided to try sewing without the foot - - - -  it worked!  another AHA moment!  The foot just gets in the way and slows things down.  It's completely unnecessary for sewing rings.  Who knew.